Cosmopolitan 1906-05: Vol 41 Iss 1

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(@SMOPOLITAN TIRIZASON OF THs SJEINAWS, BY DAVID GRAHAM PHILLIPS

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Be Fair to Your Skin, and It Will Be

Fair to You—and to Others A Beautiful Skin can only be secured through Nature’s work. Ghastly, horrid imitations of Beauty are made by cosmetics, balms, powders and other injurious compounds. They put a coat over the already clogged pores of the skin, and Now that the use of cosmetics is being inveighed against double the injury. The from the very pulpits, the importance of a pure soap becomes apparent. constant use of HAND SAPOLIO produces so fresh and rejuvenated a con- dition of the skin that all incentive to the use of cosmetics is lacking.

The FIRST STEP away from self- respect is lack of care in personal cleanliness; the first movein building up a proper pride in man, woman or child, is a visit to the bath-tub. You can’t be healthy, or pretty, or even good, un- less you are clean. USE HAND SAPOLIO. It pleases every one.

WOULD YOU WIN PLACE? Be clean, both in and out. Wecan- not undertake the former task—that lies with yourself —pbut the latter we can aid with HAND SAPOLIO. It costs but a trifle—its use is a fine habit.

SO PURE ™'' oF ETE SREY NARS OE SIE BP IIE IE,

P32) iO ek 0) am c(01 0) we) PA RU), | ee

“You have just come into a piece of f good fortune, Miss, and you will here- after get more out of life. < You, will B have better health, a fair soft skin, and will be welcome among the best people.” f HAND SAPOLIO 18 A PERFECT TOILET ARTICLE. ITS USE IMPARTS AN AIR OF DAINTINESS AND GOOD BREEDING A TOILET NECESSITY A BATH DELIGHT. HAND SAPOLIO is t can be freely used on a new-born baby or the skin of the most delicate beauty. HAND SAPOLIO neither coats over the surface, nor does it go down into the pores and dissolve their nec- essary oils. It opens the pores, liberates their ac- tivities, but works no chemical change in those delicate juicesthat go to make up the charm and bloom of a healthy com- plexion. ‘Test it yourself.

WHY TAKE DAINTY CARE of your mouth and neglect your pores, the myriad mouths of your skin? HAND SAPOLIO does not gloss them over or chemical- ly dissolve their health-giving oils, yet clears them thoroughly by a method of its own.

SO SIMPLE that it can be a part of the invalid’s supply with beneficial results.

bring the small boy almost into a state of ‘surgical So EFFICACIOUS * is cleanliness ’’ and keep him there.

(Semen emer remem on gennerme eg

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The Message of the Dome BY BAILEY MILLARD PEAK to me in symbols and I shall understand you, though all other language fail. The truth of your image shall appeal to me as no manner of abstractions shall ever appeal, though you heap before me a very alp of words. , That great symbol, the skyey dome of our national capitol— has it never given word to you, despairing citizen of this poor, heart-worn, distracted America? Has the Blessed Damozel of Liberty, leaning out from the “gold bar of heaven” above that dome, never uttered her message to your quickened ear? To me, as now, with reverent eyes, I gaze for the first time upon that dome and with reverent feet approach the capitol—familiar as a photographed face and yet how strangely new!—the message comes. Not in distinct words shall I be able to repeat it to you, but merely to hint it stammer- ingly, as one unworthy to be the spokesman of the genius of the sacred pile. To my elated sense the vast white dome, springing from its stately peristyle, lofty, massive, harmonious as a chord from Beethoven, conjures at once into concrete form the fondest dream of democracy. It grandly images the great Idea—the idea of the thing that might have been; and as I stand in the grass- bordered walk and look up at the pure symbol, sharply painted against the blue, I repeat over and over again, until the dome and the serene, majestic figure

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Cosmopolitan Magazine which it uplifts swim before tear-misted eyes: “What might have been—what might have been!’’ “The saddest of words,” avers good Whittier—yea, the very saddest of all words. Up there stands the symbol of the highest national hope that ever dawned upon the world, and down below, under the eagle-crested figure, with her shield and globe, under the feet of the Blessed Damozel who stands a thing enskyed— down there are the money changers, every day profaning the temple over which she stands impotent guard, the temple that seems no longer sacred to the repub- lican idea, but given over to the fat, waddling, satisfied priests of plutocracy! The religion of the republic that lives in the heart of the great dome and is so gloriously symbolized by the figure above it, finds no echo down there save in the breasts of a muffled minority—the saving remnant of the two great political parties. There flits the phantom, but not the substantial figure of democracy. There is spread a scenic patriotism as cheap and flimsy as the painted drops and wings of a playhouse. Here are men and women going toward the capitol and walking up the broad stairway, many of them looking about like sight-seers come here for the first time—pleased, patriotic citizens who have passed up the long statue-studded avenue and are full of the pride of country. They love their beautiful capital city and would willingly have the Congress vote millions of money for more proud buildings and more stately statues. But in the faces of the truly thoughtful ones I seem to see my own qualms, my own depression because of the clipping and draggling of the winged ideal of democracy. Yet we of the common people have not stood in high public places and we know not the tremendous, pulling-down influences that work for degradation in political character, which, after all, is only human character enticed by the same tricks and led by the same lures the world over. Looking again at the pure dome that symbolizes the national ideal, I ask myself: Is it possible that poor, fallible human nature, always at fault for social and national conditions, shall ever become other than the flabby, fatuous, self- seeking thing that it is, and shall it ever create and maintain the true tepublic ? Must the ideal federacy ever remain the ignis fatuus which the pessimists so grimly declare it? What might have been! What might not have been if there were rooted into our natures the principles of such men as Montaigne, Carlyle, Thoreau and Emerson—men who prize men for what they are and not for what they have? Our youth, looking upon the “success” of the brazen opportunists— the men who it seemed to them were doing great things, but were really only fattening and misdoing—how have they been deceived! The illusory semblance of success—over what length and breadth has it been mistaken for the real! It may be only a vision born of faith, but as I look into the faces of the multitude crowding toward the capitol, I seem to catch glimpses here and there of the awakening. And again as I look up at the dome I see that it does not after all symbolize what might have been, so much as it images what shall be. Hope shines from the face of the Blessed Damozel. Her message is hope— not that hope which is forever deferred, but the hope which springs eternal— the hope which must hold us together as a nation, despite the desperate work of the anarchs under the foul captaincy of Greed, until the time when the cold penumbra of plutocracy shall no longer be cast over us; when a life of reverence, of devoutness, of veracity and heroism shall become possible again; when the people shall no longer be the thralls of their own avarice; and when baleful money-worship shall cease, so that whatever there be that is god-like in man shall be free and to the fore, waging eternal battle against the foes of the republic.

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SENATORIAL DECADENCE Shades of Webster, Clay and Calhoun: ‘Alas, it is too true! This has indeed become the House of Dollars”’

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Drawn by William R. Leigh THE GIRL ESCAPES (See “An Unavailing Subterfuge,” page 50)

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/ 4 Vol. XLI \ | Here is the third of the ** £ feASO AY, Cosmopolitan Magazine 1906 No. ] yn of the Senate””’ series, which is stir- ring the whole country as no articles of exposure have ever stirred it before. In this chapter, Mr. Phillips vividly writes of Gorman, the left arm of the money power in the Senate. The story of the rich and influential senator’s é¢é e. ’, rise’” from a page on the Senate floor to the *‘high”” position he occupies in the House of Dollars is in itself startling. blazing indictment of the upper chamber of Congress; but more is to follow, and with each chapter the revelations will grow more Tine Treason of the Semate BY DAVID GRAHAM Treason : o iinst the United Stat ini tae cpio Kong ] fo thelr enemies 17 f ing them atd Aadherile THE CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES, III Left Arm of the Monster -? . have now seen, } First: That there has been in the past quarter of a cen- {tury an amazing and un- natural uppiling of wealth in the hands of a few; that there has been an equally amazing and equally unnat- ural descent of the masses, despite skill and industry and the boundless resources of the country, toward the dependence of wages and sala- ries; that the massing of wealth and the dif- fusion of dependence are both swiftly in- creasing. Second: That these abnormal conditions Bo aii PHILLIPS ynsist only in levying war against them, or in tC comfpor?., Article III, Section 3. have come with, and out of, the develop- ment of a small group of controllers of rail ways and, through them, of finance manufactures; that this little group controls and freely levies upon and trims the twenty thousand millions of our annual internal commerce, three-fourths of which is inter state and therefore subject to the supervision of Congress only. Third: That this little group owes its power and its wealth, in part to legislation favoring it, but in the main to the failure of Congress to safeguard the people in the pos session of the fruits of their labor by enacting the laws in regulation of interstate com- merce which the public welfare has clearly demanded and which the Constitution clearly authorizes. 7 Fourth: That the responsibility both for and 3

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4 Cosmopolitan legislation in favor of “the interests’? and for failure to legislate in restraint upon their depredations rests wholly and directly upon the United States Senate. Fifth: That, as the Senate’s legislation for “the interests’? and its failure to legislate against them have not been frank and open, but tricky, stealthy and underhanded, the Senate cannot plead in its own defense either ignorance or honest motives; that its con- duct has been and is deliberate, has been and is an intentional serving of “the inter- ests’? and an intentional betrayal of the people, has been and is treason. Sixth: That the right arm of this treason has been and is Senator Aldrich. But the monster has a left arm, also. And that left arm, almost as powerful and quite as useful as the right, is Arthur P. Gorman, of Maryland. The common enemy, “the interests,” dominate the political as well as the indus- trial machinery of the nation. In the polit- ical machinery of both parties they have at the important points faithful, well-paid agents, shrewd at fooling the people or at selecting those who can fool the people. Their control of state legislatures is such that they determine nearly three-fourths of the senators. Whoever may be, “for ap- pearance’s sake,” in charge of the Repub- lican machine, Aldrich is really in charge. Whoever may be nominally at the head of the Democratic machine, Gorman is really there. For only to men approved by them or their lieutenants will “the interests” supply the “ oil”’ indispensable to a machine. Popular movements and heroes and spasms of reform rage and pass; but the machine abides, and after the storm it resumes; indeed, it works exceeding well even through the roughest cyclones. To our national political machine, with its label that reads “Republican” on the one side and “Democratic’’ on the other, Aldrich and Gorman are as the thumb and the fore- finger to a skillful hand. Gorman, From Page to °* Patriot ’’ Gorman was born in Maryland sixty- seven years ago. After a few years at pub- lic school, he, at the age of thirteen, entered politics; his father, a contractor and lobbyist in a small way, got him a place as page in the United States Senate. This was in 1852, when the slave oligarchy, then in the heyday of its haughtiness, was using the Magazine same methods of sophistries about alleged “constitutional law’’ and alleged jealousy for the “grand old Constitution”’ that the industrial oligarchy is using in this heyday of its haughtiness. The slave oligarchy, to maintain and strengthen itself, was stren- uous for the state as paramount over the nation; to-day, we have the doctrine resur- rected by alleged Republicans from its grave under the battlefields of the Civil War, rehabilitated and restated to make the nation impotent before enemies far worse than the slave oligarchy. And under the renovated banner of “states’ rights,” “the blue” and “the gray,” the “bloody shirt” Forakers and Spooners and the Confederate Baileys and Stones march shoulder to shoulder in protecting “the interests’’ in their lootings. Gorman, the brightest of bright boys, absorbed and assimilated all the mysteries of the Senate—all its crafty, treacherous ways of smothering, of emasculating, of perverting legislation; how to thwart the people and shift the responsibility; when to kill a just bill in committee and when to kill itin open Senate in the midst of a wild scrim- mage among “honest patriots contending only for the right but conscientiously differ ing in views.” For the Senate, not elected by the people, not responsible to them, and containing a controlling nucleus of men who have their seats as securely and for as long a period as the members of any hered- itary legislative body in the world—the Senate has almost from the beginning been the bulwark of whatever form of privilege happened to be struggling to maintain itself against the people. Gorman continued his invaluable educa- tion in the Senate throughout the stormy, corrupt days of the Civil War. In 1866 he received from a Republican President the internal-revenue collectorship for the Fifth Maryland District. It has been charged that he was in those days a Republican, and that this appointment is proof of it. But the charge is foolish. He was no more a Republican then than he is a Democrat now. Such men have no politics of principle; and no one will think they have if he will take the trouble to glance from the badge to the man and his deeds. In the spring of 1869, Gorman ceased to be a Republican office- holder; in the fall he was elected to the lower house of the Maryland legislature by the Democratic party. There, at the

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Copyright, 1904, by George Prince ARTHUR PUE GORMAN, LEFT ARM OF “THE INTERESTS” IN THE SENATE

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6 Cosmopolitan Magazine age of thirty, he entered upon his real ca- reer. Aldrich’s simple home problem has been to rule Rhode Island by means of an aris- tocratic old constitution which puts all the power in the hands of the ignorant and cheaply purchaseable voters of a few sparsely populated rural townships. Gor- man’s has been less easy, yet far from diffi- cult. Maryland, being a border state, has a great many white Republicans; and there is a negro vote large enough to hold the bal- ance of power. It has been Gorman’s cue to keep “negro domination”’ ever before the eyes of the Maryland voter, to make the whites feel that, rotten though his machine is, it is yet the only alternative to “rule by and for the black.” When the Republican machine, usually his docile dependent, would in some brief spasm of reform cease to play his game, he has sometimes lost; not always, because the uncertain conditions in Baltimore compelled the machine to main- tain at all times an army of thugs, repeaters, ballot-box stuffers and the like, and several times the lost day has been saved to him by a carnival of ballot-box de- bauchery and bloody rioting. In a speech in Baltimore, on October 15; 1895, Theodore Roosevelt said, ‘T caught Mr. Gorman in an ugly falsehood, one that might be termed bet- ter in the plain Anglo-Saxon word of three letters.” Mr. Bona- parte, the pres ent secretary of the navy said on March 31, 1904: “A good many years ago Mr. Gorman was de- scribed on good Democratic au- man calls me a_ professional reformer. Whether it is more commendable to be a professional reformer or a professional lob- byist I must leave each to judge for himself. 3ut I must own that Senator Gorman’s * pro- fession’ has had one advantage over mine— it has been vastly more profitable. Although the senator seems to think honesty is of minor importance in determining a man’s qualifica- tions for high public office, it is certainly true that a conspicuous absence of this quali- fication has not proved fatal to at least one man holding a high office and aspiring to a higher.” (Gorman was then a seeker of the nomination for President. ) On October 22, 1888, Henry E. Wooten, a distinguished Marylander living at Elli- cott City, issued an open letter to Gorman in which he challenged him to sue for libel on the following statements: ‘That you, with your own hands, assisted by others, distributed three thousand dollars among the ruffians that thronged the city in 1875 ‘That you were an active participant in the fraud of 1879. You had Higgins at your headquarters in Baltimore, and he was in this county at least upon two occasions closeted with you and other conspirators against the rights and liberties of the people, perfecting the details of the conspiracy, conferring as to what names should be dropped and what names misspelled, and by which route the negro re- peaters should be sent out. “That you are steeped in cor- ruption and saturated with official perjury.” Gorman did not sue Mr. Wooten for calling him a briber and per- jurer. Nor did he sue Mr. Roosevelt for calling him a liar, nor Mr. Bonaparte for calling him a notoriously dis- honest profes- thority as a BERNARD CARTER, CHIEF COUNSEL OF ‘THE PENNSYLVANIA sional lobbyist. ‘generalissimo Senator Gor- IN THE SENATE RAILROAD IN MARYLAND, of the lobby.’ BUT LATER WAS HIS CANDIDATE TO bE HIS ASSOCIATE WHO ONCE FOUGHT GORMAN 7 . Nor did he sue Bernard Car- a

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HENRY O. HAVEMEYER, PRESIDENT OF THE AMERICAN SUGAK REFINING COMPANY, TO WHOSE ANTI-INVESTIGATION ARGUMENTS GORMAN LENT A WILLING EAR ter, the eminent lawyer and Democrat, who denounced him as “generalissimo of the lobby”? when he was handing over the streets of Baltimore to the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, which was the section of “the in- terests’’ he chiefly represented in those days. Basis of Gorman’s Power The original basis of Gorman’s power in Maryland was the state-built and state- owned Chesapeake and Ohio Canal, con- necting the coal regions with tide water. This canal had two values for a boss: it offered an indefinitely large number of “soft snaps’’—good for heelers of all grades—and it enabled corrupt and highly profitable negotiations with the railways, which would be prevented from loot- ing the people through extortionate freight rates if it were honestly administered. Gorman appreciated both of these values to the uttermost. In 1872, at the very outset of his career, he had himself made president of the canal company, and that soon en- abled him to make himself boss of the party and of the state, at first a levier upon the cor- rupt controllers of big corporations, then a partner and promoter of those controllers in “milking”? both the corporations and the people. In 1880, a suit was broughi by Daniel K. Stewart to enjoin Gorman and his gang in control of the canal from entering into contracts to give the railroad companies rebates. The testimony revealed Gorman as a grafter, great and small. There was the big side to the scandal—the huge loot in 7

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8 Cosmopolitan Magazine rebates, and in packing the service with idle heelers. Then there was the minor stealing revealed in expense accounts, of which this is only one typical specimen from a mass offered in evidence: Dec. 13, 1874. Gorman— Board and rooms...............++.$13.50 Boy, 25 cts.; fire, $1.50; cash, 50 cts. 2.25 Fires 1: tWO TOOMS.......c0c0e006 E50 Two carriages,$4; telegram, 30 cts. 4.30 Champagne, $2; hack, $1......... 3.00 Cash: 40° Waterss... 6.03 5606<5-04.0 1000 $34.55 Despite scandal and outcry Gorman, giving Mary- land choice between thug domination and “nigger’’ domination, was able to hold on to the canal un- til at had been“ milked dry,” had been ren- dered worth- less and had been turned over by Gor man’s legis- lature to the Baltimore and Ohioand the Western Maryland Railways. And with it went the peo- ple of Mary- land’s protec- tion against railway - rate extortion through the necessities of life. It was by stupendous open frauds that the gang elected the legislature which put Gorman into the United States Senate in 1881. Several of the heelers afterwards con- fessed. Harrig, for instance, told how “Gorman and Higgins called the body of men (repeaters) together to meet them at a certain hotel in this city (Baltimore). He WASHINGTON HOME

OF (Gorman) wanted a certain man in Howard County defeated for the legislature.” Charlie Goodman, who had twenty-eight entries in the criminal docket against him, told how “Higgins paid me five dollars apiece for my forty men.” He told about various Baltimore elections—the gangs of roughs sent by the political machines of New York, Philadelphia, etc., in exchange for similar services from the Gorman gang. “ Those repeaters,” said he, “ have been put in my hands forty strong. I was ordered not to put in‘less than five thousand votes; but I usually put in fifty-eight hundred.” So diligently did Gorman reward the assiduity of his humble allies who lifted him to the Senate by these meth- ods that the Independent Democratsof Maryland, in a public ad dress in 1887, Saud, “Ot twenty-three state and fed- eral employ ees In one ward (of Bal- timore) we have found nineteen whose names appear on the criminal records.” There were money re wards also; these, of course, came chiefly from the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, which financed the Gorman machine and which had the first call upon Gorman him self until the Pennsylvania Railroad bought control of the Baltimore and Ohio. Then, naturally, Gorman passed to the service of that powerful section of “the interests”’ called the “ Pennsylvania.”’ We may not linger upon Gorman’s home SENATOR GORMAN

ET TL ae TT en: RT SE Te RNRFER foo Satan (emer

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NN The Treason record—upon the treachery to the people of Maryland, equal proportionately to Depew’s and Platt’s in New York, to Aldrich’s in Rhode Island—the hundreds of millions of loot, the great licenses to loot in perpetuity handed over, with no public compensation, to railway companies, gas companies, traction companies, or, rather, to the greedy few who “milk”? those companies and, through the companies, the people. The distinction between the corporation and the thief who seizes and robs it and uses it as a tool for robbing others should not be lost sight of. It is precisely that abysmal but too often overlooked distinction which makes the men in control of our industrial machinery, not leaders and developers of the national re- sources, but looters and national enemies, parasites upon prosperity, and upon the producers of prosperity. “*Where a Man’s Treasure Is’’ Gorman entered the Senate as a senator twenty-five years ago this spring. He already knew the mysteries of the Senate. He had been studying and practicing the black art of politics for nearly thirty years. Inevitably he was soon a leader, the trusted counselor of those of his party who wished to be led skillfully in the subtle ways of doing the will of “the interests’? without inflaming the people against them. He, of course, entered the Senate primarily as an agent of the eminently respectable among his pals and sponsors, the interstate looters through the railway corporations of his state. Every traitor senator, whatever else he represents in the way of an enemy to the people, always represents some thief or group of thieves through railways. For the railway, reaching everywhere, as intimate a part of our life now as the air we breathe, is the easy and perfect instrument of the whole- sale looter of investors and of the public, and is also the natural nucleus and subsidizer of a political machine. And, as the railways have merged—even Aldrich now publicly concedes that competition has been almost abolished—the senators have “merged’’ also. And peace reigns in the Senate Chamber under a “community of interest”’ in treason corresponding to the “com- munity of interest” in spoliation. But it is with the “merging” of the Re- publican and Democratic political machines that we are now concerned. And let no one be distracted by the roaring eloquence and of the Senate 9 the sham battles of the Senate or by the “eminent respectability’? of the senators into losing sight of the central fact that the machines, drawing their revenues from the one power, ruled by the twin agents of that power, are the property of that power— never more so than when the politicians, wearing and disgracing official robes, beat the air and “jam the wind’’ to make the people confuse party and _ party principle with party machine. To appre- ciate the Senate look, not at its professions, not at the surface pretenses of the measures it permits to become laws, but at the effect of those laws—how plutocracy and plunder thrive under them. And to understand why the laws always somehow fail to serve the people, always somehow relicense the people’s enemies, look at Aldrich and Gor- man and their band—how they got, how they keep their seats; whom they associate with; their private fortunes; how their for- tunes are invested. “Where a man’s treas- ure is, there will his heart be also.” Rarely does the Senate hold a session without there cropping out some indication of the existence of this secret “merger’’ of the two party machines under which they work together in harmony wherever “the interests’? are interested—befogging the responsibility for acts hostile to the public interest, lining up senators from both par- ties for a debate or a vote, and releasing to perfunctory, though always perfervid oppo- sition, senators who have “insuperable con- scientious objections” in the particular matter or dare not offend the people of their state in that particular crisis. For, while many of the “merged” senators can all but leave out of account the feelings of “my people,” there are more who have to be “conscientious”? and careful and crafty, except during the first two or three years after they have been elected, and when they have three or four years before they come up for election again. Occasionally the evi- dences of the existence and smooth work- ing of the “merger”? are so plain that only the very stupid or the stone - blind partisan would fail to see. An Historic Act of Treachery But these almost daily indications of the “merger”? and of the real inwardness of most of the senators on both sides are rarely clear enough for any but the well versed in the mysteries and undercurrents of prac- 2

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10 Cosmopolitan Magazine tical politics. For a clear proof, let us recall the historic act of treachery which revealed Gorman publicly and branded his ownership in national affairs as indelibly and conspicuously upon him as it had long been branded upon him in Maryland state affairs. Whenever there is a revenue or a rail- way-rate bill up before the Senate, there is obviously a crisis of the first magnitude between “the interests” and the people. The Senate is extremely slippery at manipu- lation in public. Besides, it. has its com- mittees for doing in secret the traitorous acts that could not be done publicly; and, in times of crisis, the ‘‘merger” uses all the cunning of its double-headed leader, Al- drich-Gorman,and his adroit staff, in arrang- ing the public side of the act of treachery so that appearances will be deceptive or at least will deceive a people always heretofore disposed too generously to give their public men the benefit of every conceivable doubt. But in 1894 the “merger” was not working as smoothly as it is now; ‘‘the interests” had not yet either driven honest senators from public life, or coerced some of them, cowed others and flattered the rest into silence or into no speech stronger than futile, general, and impersonal protest couched in terms redolent of “senatorial courtesy.” So the great act of treason of 1894 was done with much and terrible public scandal. The revenue or tariff bill—the Wilson bill —had come up from the House, with much loot in it for “the interests,”’ for Mr. Wilson and the honest among the Democratic rep- resentatives in the House were no match for the sly “Democratic” and “Republican” “tariff experts” of “the interests.” But it did contain free sugar, free coal, free iron and free barbed wire; and, as the majority of the senators then posed as Democrats pledged to tariff reform, the bill bade fair to pass—so the country thought—in some form that would give partial relief from the exactions of “the interests,” in so far as those exactions arose through abuse of the tariff system. We get some faint idea of how vast that plundering is when we note that the United States Steel Corporation, worth actually about $350,000,000, makes in net profits upward of $120,000,000 a year; and, as in all large corporations, there is, in addition to the profits for the stockholders, an usually larger “rake off” for “the inside ring” that is hidden by bookkeeping and other devices of “high finance.” As usual, Aldrich and Gorman retired to their finance committee with the tariff bill— as the Senate was ‘‘ Democratic,” Gorman had taken the chairmanship of the com- mittee and the leadership of the Senate that goes with it, and Aldrich had become nominal second in command. All the mis- chief, all the treachery that was put into that bill in the secrecy of that committee by those slippery twins, will never be known; it is impossible for anyone not in the secret to grasp the effect of the sly amendments slipped in here and there. But there could be no concealment of the treachery in giving the looters of the people renewed and enlarged licenses to rob in-such necessities as iron and coal. Gorman’s public pretext was that the tariffs on those articles were needed for purposes of revenue! This, when we are exporters, not importers, of iron and coal; and the. duties on those arti- cles therefore serve only to enable the iron and coal monopolists to charge us what they please without fear of foreign competition. The “merger” lined up for the treason by Gorman, was composed of all Aldrich’s men and the five from Gorman’s band necessary to piece out a majority of the Senate: Gorman, Brice of Ohio, Murphy of New York, Smith and McPherson of New Jersey. With this secure majority Gorman and Aldrich faced the infuriated House. So aroused was the whole country that the House would not have yielded to the traitor Senate had not Gorman given a solemn pledge that, if the Gorman-Aldrichized Wilson bill were passed, he would see to it that the Senate would afterwards pass and send to the House for passage four separate bills placing sugar, iron, coal and barbed wire on the free list. ‘The House took his word and yielded; the Gorman-Aldrich bill, denounced by President Cleveland as “ party perfidy and party dishonor,” became a law. And what of Gorman’s solemn pledge ? He prepared and offered the four promised bills. ‘Then the Senate referred them—to the Aldrich-Gorman finance committee! And they died a midnight death there. Their consignment to that chief senatorial slaughter-pen of “the interests” was made by a “merger” vote—the Aldrich men plus eight supplied by Gorman. The Sugar Scandal The public scandal centered about sugar. Havemeyer had been too blatant, the trust E L | Somme me OR oor rR ee

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SR TO Ope: = vere S had distributed and tendered bribes almost openly, and senators and representatives had gambled in sugar stock. When the whole country was ablaze, Senator Peffer of Kansas offered a resolution to investigate. Senator Quay, among the “ Republicans” then second only to Aldrich in ardent and efficient service of ‘the interests,” promptly moved to lay the resolution on the table, that is, to kill it. He was seconded by Gorman, himself at that very moment in the public pillory as a traitor to party and country. Here are a few characteristic sentences from Gorman’s speech: “T denounce the outrageous misrepresen- tations of senators which have been made. I trust that this case will bring the Senate of the United States back to its old-time method of action. Let senators on both sides of the chamber, without regard to party, vin- dicate this body by resenting the attempt to bring in here such a matter as is included in the resolution of the senator from Kansas If he or any other senator on the floor be- lieves that his vindication is necessary, let him ask for an investigation. But to take up these sweeping charges as to senators against whom there has heretofore not been a breath of scandal, who have done nothing but discharge a public duty, as they under- stand it, is, in my judgment, an outrage! ” This will vividly and amusingly remind the reader of some of the utterances of dis- tinguished senators and conspicuous news- paper servants of “the interests” since the present series on the “Treason of the Senate” was announced. However, the “merger”? lined up its motley band, and the Peffer resolution was “tabled.” But the scandal grew and grew and grew until, when Lodge, still in the “reformer” stage of his career, offered another and similar resolution, it was passed. Senatorial investigations of the Senate form about the most derisive and disgusting of the many varieties of senatorial solemn farce. This particular one was no excep- tion. But despite the rotten insincerity and connivance at suppression, so frightful was the corruption and so inadequate to the situation was the then newly formed and awkwardly working “merger,” that a few facts were brought out. The majority or “merger”? report gave everybody a nice, clean character. The minority report, got up by reformer Lodge, who had not yet learned the Senate’s gospel that the Al- mighty created the American people for the benefit of “the interests,”’ was less careful of the “dignity of the Senate.” It contained The Treason of the Senate II some facts as to Gorman’s secret work. It showed that the sugar trust magnates, Havemeyer, Searles, Henry R. Reed and Cord Meyer, were in Washington more or less constantly and that “they addressed their arguments principally’? to Gorman and the other “ Democratic’? members of the “merger.” Said the Lodge report: “Tt appears, by the testimony of Senator Vest, that Senator Brice of Ohio, Senator Gorman of Maryland, Senator Smith of New Jersey, Senator Hill of New York, and Sena- tors White and McCafferty of Louisiana, after said conference (a Democratic caucus) came to the rooms of the finance committee in regard to the sugar schedule. Senator Vest testified that Senator Gorman urged a duty of forty per cent. ad valorem, and one- fourth of a cent a pound differential in favor of refined sugars as the proper schedule.” That is, Gorman was not satisfied with presenting over twenty million dollars a year from the pockets of the people to the sugar trust—the gift which the “merger”’ had previously arranged to grant. In his enthusiasm he tried to make the gift forty millions a year! The two Louisiana Demo- cratic senators balked at this and prevent- ed it. The Lodge report continued: “The sugar trust, by the evidence of its president and treasurer, has contributed freely to the state and city campaigns of both par- ties, and these contributions have been made in years when national elections were held. This is a thoroughly corrupt form of cam- paign contributions, for such contributions, being given to two opposing parties, are not for the purpose of promoting certain po- litical principles, but to establish an obliga- tion to the giver on the part of whichever party comes into power. But nothing was done, except to improve and extend the “merger.” It works better nowadays. Aldrich and Gorman are more skillful, and the orators of treason are more adroit. Aldrich had no such smooth sophist as Spooner then, nor had Gorman a Bailey; the “new”’ or loot-licensing “con- stitutional interpretation’? was in its blun- dering infancy; the Senate was just begin- ning to discover that the Constitution is unfortunately so worded that it contains nothing to protect the people from their enemies, but only provisions for protecting their enemies from them. Ejected from His Seat but Back Again Gorman was ejected from his seat in the Senate in 1896. But he retained his old

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12 Cosmopolitan Magazine reliable Maryland machine, which, being financed by the Maryland branch of “the interests,” was proof against the brief incon- stant winds of popular clamor however cyclonic. And now he is back in the Senate again, and on duty for those who sent him there, for those with whom his treasure is. He is more stealthy than before—he has learned to be more cautious. But his modest shrinking does not interfere with his usefulness. A senator’s best work is done in the “conference,” in the “caucus” and in the committee—all secret. It must not be supposed, because the “Democratic” representation in the Senate is in a hopeless minority before the “ Repub- lican,” that Democratic senators are useless to the “merger” or that Gorman is not valuable. True, Aldrich has more than enough votes on his own side of the Senate to perpetrate almost any act of treason “the interests’? may demand. But, remember, there are many senators who must be let off from voting for this or that measure, must even be allowed to speak in opposition that they may make themselves “ solid’? with their constituents. For, while the “inter- ests’’-owned legislatures can elect as senator almost anybody “the interests” advocate, still there is a limit—the man must not be a stench in the nostrils of the people, unless the state is a rotten borough like Rhode Island or Montana or West Virginia, or has peculiar political conditions like New York, Pennsylvania or Maryland. Sometimes the “merger’’ has to draw heavily upon the band shepherded by Gorman. Again, it is wise for both parties to the “merger’’ to assail in vigorous, honest, nonpartisan fashion some measure hostile to “the inter- ests’? and helpful to the people which mil- lionaire yeoman Joe Cannon has had to send up from his House. In many ways, and at every session, Gorman is useful—as useful as Aldrich. For a small but classically perfect in- stance: On April 11, 1904, a resolution to investigate post-office conditions, including the huge railway graft upon the Post-Office Department, came before the Senate. Gorman moved to eliminate the paragraph providing funds for the investigation. Aldrich rose and pointed out that another paragraph, overlooked by Gorman, might be construed as ordering the appropriation. Gorman at once modified his motion. The resolution, freed of its hasty and ill-con- sidered features by the Gorman-Aldrich amendments, was passed by a “merger” vote, and there could be no investigation of railway postal loot for lack of funds! Great Wealth of Gorman The Senate is a great stickler for form. Places on committee are assigned by rigid rule of seniority. ‘Thus, all the important committees are composed of a secure ma- jority of seasoned veterans in treason, men who know how to serve “the interests’ with celerity, skill and noiseless stealth. A new senator gets nothing, is nothing; and if he should revolt, should develop the courage to rise up and in open Senate denounce the band of smooth, rich, socially prominent, always affable, traitors, he would simply make himself a senatorial pariah, and would be laughed at by the press of. “the interests’? as an overheated crank. Thus far, none among the few honest senators has developed that really heroic courage. Gorman, by his defeat in 1896, lost his place in the Senate’s line of promotion, and was on his return,in 1903, a new senator. Yet, we find him immediately back on the all-powerful finance committee! And whenever a measure marked for death by “the interests’? enters that secret chamber, there he is, ready to drive with expert hand a knife into its heart, while Aldrich closes expert fingers on its throat to prevent outcry. Gorman is very rich, almost, if not quite, as rich as Aldrich. He is a multi-million- aire, a partner in sundry railways and mines. He and his cousin, Senator Elkins, chair- man of the Senate interstate-commerce committee and therefore chief executioner of all measures aimed at railway looters, are in many enterprises together. But Gor- man, though rich, lives modestly and does nothing to cause the people to speak of him as a plutocrat, or to wonder “ where he got it,” nothing to cause his poorer henchmen to turn upon him and demand a “square deal.” Such is the “Democratic’’ leader of the Senate—a matched mate to the “Repub- lican’’ leader, Aldrich. And this being the character of the leadership, what is the nec- essary conclusion as to the led? We shall next look at the orators of the treason, the chief public mouthpieces oj the Senate. (To be continued) Seton

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STRUGGLE FOR LIFE Frozen Nightmares Work of Boleslas Biegas, Sculptor and Mystic BY J. HOWLEY QOLESLAS BIEGAS is a child of the Polish people, a ) peasant genius in whom Pol- ish art comes in contact with the soil to rise again like Anteus with strength re- 41) newed. He was born in 1877, at Koriozyn, a hamlet near Plock, in the province of Fj that name, and was the son of a poor village fiddler who earned a hard and precarious living by tramping to wed- ding, fair or village gathering to play the mazourkas and other national dances dear to the peasant. Little Boleslas accom- panied his father on many such occasions. The elder Biegas would appear to have had considerable talent as a musician, for it is said that many of the tunes he played for his peasant audiences were of his own com- position. It cannot be doubted that this music did much to shape the child’s mind and quicken his sensibilities. We have but to look at the symbolic groups of “Chopin Playing’? and “Beethoven”? to perceive how deeply Biegas has been affected and influenced by music, the one artistic heri- tage of his childhood. At best the life of a wandering fiddler is hard, and its miseries soon brought his father to the grave, victim to the rigors of a Polish winter. His mother was left all but destitute with three children to care for. Some near relatives took charge of little

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THE EARTH Boleslas and set him to mind sheep, like another Giotto. The little farm-serf grew a dreamy, moody boy, fond of solitude, of wandering through fields and forest, wondering and ques- tioning nature with a child’s all-curious faith. Around the homestead stretched wide mead and a fair woodland, and hard by lay a great forest. In the mud pies, dear to the children of every clime, the little sculptor found his first modeling Cosmopolitan Magazine CHOPIN clay and the first joys of the maker of images. To the huge delight of his playmates he pinched and twisted the sticky mud; beneath his nimble fin- gers it grew into figures of saints and angels. Anon he made portraits of his companions, and the people on the farm. So startling were the likenesses that the older folk thought it was un- canny. The story grew that the little sculptor was bewitched or possessed by the devil; that he threw lumps of mud into the air and evil spirits flung them back in the shape of men. His people were so scared at the thought that they ran to the worthy parish priest, M. Rzewnicki, and implored him to exorcise the little wizard. That excellent pastor, at once recognizing the child’s great talent, took steps to have him apprenticed to a certain woodcarver in Warsaw, from whom, however, Biegas learned little and suffered much. IIl treated and forced to sleep in a damp, cold room he caught an attack of rheumatic fever which nearly proved fatal. On his discharge from hospital he returned home with his health shattered. Thanks to the devoted care of M. Raykowski, an excellent and most charitable country doctor who had recog- nized his talent and pitied his sufferings, Bie- gas was restored to some degree of health; but he will, to the end of his days, suffer from the after effects of that fever. That morbid and macabre note which dominates his best work had doubtless its

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| i i i } physiological origin in this aftermath of his apprenticeship. His friends and admirers made a fresh effort to secure for him an artistic educa- tion. Over one hundred dollars was col- lected each year to provide for his main- tenance at the Academy of Fine Arts in Cracow, where he was placed through the influence of M. Swietochowski, a _ well- known Polish writer and publicist. On this very meager stipend Biegas managed to complete his course at the Academy. He worked and studied incessantly; as far as industry went he was a model student, but his peculiar genius would not bend its neck to the yoke of academic convention and he narrowly escaped being sent down for his art heresies. The younger genera- tion of artists were, however, keen to see his merit. The works he exhibited aroused a lively interest among that group of rising artists known as the Vienna Secessionists. He was elected a member of that society. Niewiadomski, the celebrated critic of the “Kurjer Warszav- ski,” wrote as fol- lows of the various compositions exhib ited by Biegas: “All our sculptors from Brodzki to the most recent may speak Polish, bear Polish names, some may even reside in War- saw or Cracow, but their sculpture is Greek, French or Ital- ian in character, the result of their studies and the place where these studies were made. They differ in talent, expression, de- gree of knowledge; but they have in com- mon an absolute want of artistic individu- ality, thanks to which their work, with the exception of that of Kurzawa, is as little Polish in character as the jewelry of Wit- Stwosz or the paint- ing of | Chodowiecki. : Biegas, this son of a peasant, is just one of those _ pro- foundly original na- tures, but his origi- nality is essentially NIGHT Polish. All that he Frozen Nightmares THE OUTCAST gives to art is his own: ideas, types, sentiments, even the very form, for he has created a new form. It may well be that the composi- tions of Biegas will make no such direct appeal to the more western mind. Al- though critics like Adolphe Basler, An- dré Fontainas, Mar- cel Réja and Virgile Josz have been deeply touched by his creations, many at first sight will think they are fan- tastically morbid,

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16 Cosmopolitan Magazine and infantile in execution. But if we only glance at the various portrait busts exe- cuted by Biegas we are forced to admit that he possesses extraordinary technical facility and a rare power of realistic pre- sentment. A certain love of the rectangular and an almost childish simplicity of expression characterize some of the symbolic groups. LOVE OF The artist seems to stumble, to falter in his utterance like the soul of a child lisping of the unknown in broken accents. Biegas is a “primitive” of the twentieth century seek ng to express, not the outward husk of things seemly or even unseemly, but the deep inner realities of life, the unspoken word of the mind of hings. Like the Flemish primitives, although in a different medium, he forces an extreme realism to phrase the supra-real. His sculpture is an- agogic in the sense of the old “‘schoolmen ”’; he sets forth the eternal verities in terms of harsh and passionate fact, not of convention or academic symbol. Pierre Jaudon speaks DEATH of Biegas as the sculptor “ of the philosophic idea,” an apt enough phrase to express the degree of artistic abst action he attains, a degree which differentiates his work in its essential features from that of Rodin or Denis Puech, who have also striven to

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CHOPIN PLAYING render abstract ideas visible and tangible. There is a poignancy, a grip in the symbol- ism of Biegas not to be found in the work of these two great artists; he is concise and expressive where they are diffuse and un- certain in their treatment of the abstract as such. They are content to suggest; he asserts. They hide the inner truth in marble; Biegas almost hides the marble in the eternal verity he sets before us. In the nature of these truths as in their treatment, we find the art of Biegas sharply marked off from that of the primitives at its very fountain head. Their art was pri- marily religious in character based on a very definite dogmatic concention of the supernatural; his remains on the purely philosophic plane as a general rule. Their mysticism had a definiteness which his lacks and hence their art has a firmer touch, a surer tread. Biegas, like Plotinus, is apt to lose himself in the clouds; he becomes obscure when he would be most profound. His medium has its limitations and he is forever asking from it what it cannot give. The tired clay revolts against his exigencies and thus we get from time to time a touch of the puerile or of the meaningless. It is the aphasia of the Ineffable. He madea “ Christ’ which so scandalized holy orthodox Russia that its exhibition or reproduction was forbidden. In it Biegas 17

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18 Cosmopolitan Magazine THE HURRICANE comes closer in fundamentals to the primi- tives. It is, perhaps, his best work as a religious mystic, yet it bears many traces of the humanitarian thinker. It is the sculp- tured idea of the Roman liturgy for Good Friday, “Sponte libera Redemptor, Passioni deditus.”’ In the “Struggle for Life,” and the “Love of Death” we have every phase of human suffering, of agony, of passion; but in revolt loud and clamant. Man is on the rack and racking his fellows. The secular suffering of Poland breathes through these skeletons and frenzied masks. “The Earth” is the whisper, harsh and strident, of the Polish soil impassive towards the dead it enfolds. Present and past sweep towards us in “Night.” As an effort to symbolize sound in sculpture, the groups ‘Chopin Playing,” and “Bee- thoven,” are at least remarkable. In their vivid force and absolute disregard of con- vention they are very characteristic of the BEETHOVEN

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artist. Despite its macabre touches, “ Chopin Playing” startles us to admiration by that grand gamut of human passion whic! surges fror the weird keyboard under the touch of the master so dear to the heart of the Pole. Chopin was one of a great group, the friend of Mickiewicz and Slowacki, the associate of those exiles of 1830 who shed such luster on the Polish name. For this, no less than for his music, he won the love and reverence of his compatriots. Biegas seems to profess quite a cult for Poland’s great composer, as witness his other memo- rial, strange half-portrait of musician and Jacobin, for it has more than a touch of revolt in its composition, “Beethoven” THE LAST SUNSET Frozen Nightmares THE WORLD is, for Biegas, almost classical in its re- straint and harmony. The giant sweep of the great composer’s rhythms finds fitting similitude in this composition so markedly differing in style from ‘Chopin Playing.” In both we may note that mastery of wave

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| | | 20 form, that sense of surging motion, which we find in so many of his com- positions, a gift of fluid movement dou- bly strange in a sculptor so monu- mental, so addicted to straight lines. What greater con- trast in technical ex- ecution could we have than those two compositions, “‘ The Storm,” and “The World”? In both we have symbolism pushed to the limits cf the intelligible. In “The Hurricane,” and the exquisitely pathetic “Outcast,” we find further examples of this wave motion with its won- derful sense of swing and movement. Such work re- veals the. master of tech- nique, whatever be his oc- casional shortcomings or obscurities. During his brief career Biegas has executed many other works of a kindred character, but the examples we have given are, per- haps, the best and most characteristic products of his genius. We find in them a depth of feeling and reflection linked to a tech- nical skill that would be little short of marvelous in one dowered with all the advantages of birth and education denied to the son of a poor village fiddler, born and bred in the direst poverty. It may well be that gifted by fortune he would have sunk to the common ruck of conven- tion, that the normal cul- ture of the art schools would have ground him into the conventional pebble on the artistic beach. His hard Cosmopolitan Magazine MEDITATION boyhood and youth of toil, his constant contact with mother earth gave him his inspiration, opening his ears to the whis- per of the dead and his eyes to the sor- rows of living men. In the schools he would have learned to copy; would he have learned to cre- ate? It seems more than doubtful. His countrymen, as Nie- wiadomski not ob- scurely hints, remain the Bouvards and Pecuchets of the world of beauty. Biegas might have risen superior to such sur- roundings. The study of art on academic lines might have served to check some of his extravagances, but what if that delicate mystic spirit had been hopelessly obscured by formalism? The world’s loss would have been great, for of all arts sculpture most needs a re- naissance, or shall we say a revival? We can no more hope to excel the Greeks in mere formal beauty than we can hope to rival the architects of the great ca- thedrals. Externality in sculpture attained finality before the Christian era; yet the inner truth, the hidden life remains to be ade- quately expressed in forms which vary with the ages. We have had such art in the Gothic, in the works of the great primitives; can we have it to-day ? Has our age with all its struggles, tri- umphsand suffering no mes- sage to be shadowed forth in stone or bronze? We have machines to copy; have we men tomake? Let Boleslas Biegas answer for Poland.

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THOMAS TocsRry ‘*OUT WITH MARY” the Trail of the Intangible BY ELEANOR H. PORTER Ilustrated by Thomas Fogarty KSe-NgISS IRVINGTON’S apart- Ni ; i ments at The Kensington ) were wonderfully like their occupant. The handsome decorations and artistic fur- Ga nishings were typical of the RAG correct elegance of Miss Vek, Irvington’s toilets; the im- (SS&Q maculate orderliness every- where visible suggested the re x AVS , Bx, a E ~ LSIY ~ y! NG =~ AG" or Week is 3 Cay aan ch Lp e 2 » yee = Bb Zz SN AY unchanging precision of Miss Irvington’s hooks, buttons, neckbands, and_ hairpins; while the book-lined walls and magazine- piled tables were not less frankly given over to the pursuit of literature than was Miss Irvington herself. Education, travel, a receptive mind, a nimble wit, and a faculty for expressing herself with a certain original piquancy had worked wonders in the case of Miss Irving- ton. Her book of short stories had made a sudden hit, and the name of Kathleen In- vington figured prominently in the lists of popular writers. No one was more surprised than was the writer herself; and that this fame might be as transitory as it had been unexpected was her secret conviction. Determined to make

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} il | 22 Cosmopolitan Magazine the most of her opportunity, however, she kept a shrewd eye on the critic’s column and a sensitive finger on the public pulse. It was thus that she caught the first hint of dis- approval; thus that she learned that her ‘clever phrases and tinkling adverbs,” as one critic put it, ‘tickled the ear but did not touch the heart”—in a word, her work lacked “‘human interest.” It was then that Miss Irvington cast about for a remedy. ‘“‘Human interest” conveyed no very defi- nite idea to Miss Irvington. It vaguely meant tears, thrills, and tuggings at one’s heartstrings, and with none of these things was Miss Irvington familiar. Orphaned too early to realize her loss, and blessed with health, wealth, and a large circle of ad- miring friends, she had found little cause for tears. Thrills were equally unknown— even at sixteen she had not ‘‘ gushed”: there was nothing very exciting in buying what one wanted or in going where one pleased. As for the tuggings at one’s heartstrings— this was a little the most incomprehensible of the three. One had a heart, of course—a sensible, serviceable organ whose business it was to send good red blood coursing through one’s veins; but as for its possess- ing strings, strings capable of being tugged, and even if it did have such, pray, why should one wish to have them tugged ? It took hours of critical examination of books and papers, days of reasoning, and weeks of time to bring Miss Irvington to her final decision: children—stories of children brought tears, thrills, and tuggings at one’s heartstrings; therefore, stories of children she would have to write. For a time she was nonplused. Educa- tion, travel, a nimble wit—of what use were these in the face of her woeful lack of a model? She could not sit in the parks nor stand on the street corners waiting for a glimpse of small figures or a chance word from young lips. It was on a Wednesday morning that she finally hit upon her great plan, and it was upon a Wednesday after- noon that she visited the orphan asylum, “‘Good-afternoon,” she said brightly to the matron. ‘‘I—I want to buy a child.” ““Madam!” Miss Irvington pulled herself together in quick response to the horror in the other’s face. “That wasn’t just the way to put it, was it?” she said, contritely, with the charming smile that had never yet failed to win others to her way of thinking. ‘‘I want one for—” Miss Irvington caught herself in time; she had almost said ‘‘copy,” but the word was ‘fadoption” when the matron heard it. “Very well, madam,” returned the woman, trying to combat with severity the sudden softening of her heart under that radiant smile. ‘Did you wish a boy, or a girl?” Miss Irvington frowned. “Why, how stupid of me! I—I never thought.” “Indeed!” “‘I—er—let me see them, please,” sug- gested Miss Irvington; and to the matron it seemed as though she were suddenly a shop- keeper asked to display ribbons and socks for a choice. When Miss Irvington was ushered into the presence of twenty-three children, vary- ing as to age, size, and beauty, but unvary- ing as to wide-eyed scrutiny of herself, she dropped limply into a chair. “Dear me, how very confusing!” she murmured. ‘So many, and so—different!” ‘There are more upstairs,” said the ma- tron, grimly. ‘‘Will you see those, too?” “Indeed, no,’ demurred Miss Irvington, quickly, with uplifted hand; “‘there are quite enough here.” And again was the matron unpleasantly reminded of socks and ribbons. ““Now that little girl is pretty,” mused Miss Irvington, aloud, ‘‘and that little boy in the corner is a dear; but, after all, the long-curled, wide-collared, big-eyed style has been done to death.” Her eyes slowly traversed the group, coming to a pause on the diminutive nose of a freckle-faced, red- haired girl about eight years old. The child met her gaze with unfaltering, fascinated eyes. “Good gracious!” said Miss Irving- ton under her breath; then she turned with sudden. eagerness to the matron. . “ After all, it would be more original—one like that; wouldn’t it?” ‘*Ma’ami” gasped the matron. Again Miss Irvington laughed and pulled herself sharply together. ‘““There’s more originality—mind, brains —behind a plain face sometimes, don’t you think ?” she asked, frankly. Then, with that adorable smile, she crossed the room and took the red-haired girl by the hand. “I think I’ll take this one,” she said. ‘Oh! oh! and now what have I done ?” she fin- ished, dropping the child’s hand in conster-

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“WELL, WELL, MY LITTLE MAID, SO YOU’VE COME TO LIVE HERE?” BEGAN WHEATON, PLEASANTLY

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ee i F one nied tren ionrnent-t-nineeiienionee inna ease gaan 5 Seah tee pen elindenndedeencar-a. Alicia Sitonsenaeiwctbmiistehiboae THE LITTLE GIRL HAD BURST INTO A TEMPEST OF SOBS nation, for at the first touch of Miss Irving- ton’s fingers, the little girl had burst into a tempest of sobs. Miss Irvington had supposed that her task was a simple one; in her idea, she had but to walk in, make her selection, and walk out, leading her choice by the hand. Now she found that she must face delay, 24 and be subjected to the most rigid of exami- nations as to her fitness to be intrusted with a child. Nor was the matron inclined to be lenient. In the end, however, even she could find little te criticize. Miss Kathleen Irvington, thirty, rich, of unimpeachable character and connections, was found emi- nently worthy; and in due time Roxana— 2

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surname unknown—found herself in the fairyland of loveliness which other people knew as Miss Irvington’s home. “There, my dear,” welcomed Miss Ir- vington, frowning unconsciously at the plain little hat and coat as she took them off; “T’m so glad I have you now all to myself! Let’s see, your name is pe The child opened her lips but no sound came, so dry and stiff was the little tongue behind them. “T’ve known it, but I’ve forgotten,” be- gan Miss Irvington again. ‘‘It is 2 Once more the lips opened; this time they quivered into a sob. “Roxana,” the child choked. “Oh, yes—very pretty, too! other one?” “* Freckles.” half-ashamed. ‘Oh, not that,” laughed Miss Irvington; then her face changed. ‘Never mind, dear; you’ll be known now as ‘Roxana Irvington,’ and you must call me ‘Aunt Kate.’” The small face went down into the two hands, and again the little figure shook with sobs. Miss Irvington frowned. Then assumed an elaborate air of patience. “Well,” she said, after a time, ‘will you please tell me what there is about that to make you cry? I’m sure you needn’t call me ‘Aunt Kate’ if you don’t want to!” “Oh, I do—I do,” wailed the small girl, slipping from her seat and throwing herself on her knees at Miss Irvington’s feet. ‘I’m cryin’ ’cause I can call you ‘Aunt Kate.’ I never had nothin’ nor nobody. An’ please, mayn’t I kiss you—once?”’ finished Rox- ana, springing to her feet and throwing herself bodily upon Miss Irvington, with outstretched arms, and with two trembling lips pressed against her cheek. “Why, how—how extraordinary!” mur- mured Miss Irvington, as soon as she could speak. ‘‘Er—thank you, my dear, I’m sure,” she added, as Roxana sank back into her chair in an agony of frightened self-con- sciousness. ‘‘ Dear me, I wonder if they’re usually so demonstrative,” thought Miss Irvington, as she pushed back a disordered lock of hair, rearranged her neckbow, and adjusted the front of her shirtwaist. ‘‘Now, dear, we—we’ll go to your room,” she began again, but with a curious hesitancy in voice and manner. “I want you to feel And the The voice was lower, and she On the Trail of the Intangible 25 perfectly at home, and act thoroughly natural—natural,” repeated Miss Irvington, with a sudden return of her old assurance. It had taken some of Miss Irvington’s money, and more of Miss Irvington’s tact, to pave the way for Roxana’s coming. The proprietor of the big apartment hotel in which Miss Irvington lived did not favor children; but he did favor Miss Irvington. Mary, who ruled Miss Irvington’s rooms and wardrobe with an iron hand, also did not favor children; but she, too, did favor Miss Irvington. Mary was no ordinary maid. Her family had been in the service of Miss Irvington’s mother and grand- mother, and Mary’s position was more that of a self-sacrificing, burden-bearing friend than that of a maid. ‘After all,” Miss Irvington assured her, “you wont have much to dp with the child, Mary, only to look after her clothes a bit, perhaps. She will go to Miss Fay’s school half of the day, of course, and I shall want to be with her all I can myself, you see. How else, pray, am I to watch and study her ?”’ As for Aunt Martha, the only other member of the household, she, too, disap- proved of children—when talking with the hotel proprietor or with Mary; to Kath- leen, her niece, she expressed unqualified approval of Roxana’s coming. To Miss Irvington’s’ friends and ac- quaintances in general, the adoption of the red-haired, unattractive child passed as “another of Kathleen’s whims,” and was received with the smile of indulgence that rich girl’s fancies are apt to win. To Miss Irvington herself, the thing presented un- told possibilities and promised unlimited “copy.” She accordingly entered upon her new duties with an eagerness that could brook no delay. On the very day of Roxana’s arrival, Miss Irvington dressed the child in the dainty garments she had promptly pro- vided after that first visit to the asylum; then she stood back and admired the result. “Gee, ain’t I swell!’? murmured Roxana, turning round and round before the full- length reflection in the mirror. Miss Irvington gave a start of dismay; then she clapped her hands joyfully. “Fine! Capital!” she cried, running across the room and catching up paper and pencil. ‘I wonder, now—” She paused, her pencil suspended. ‘How do you spell it?” she demanded, turning to Roxana. 3

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26 Cosmopolitan Magazine There was no answer. Roxana’s face expressed blank incomprehension. “Never mind, you poor little mite,” laughed Miss Irvington. “I fancy it’s g—double—e. I'll venture it, anyhow.” “Be these mine—all mine?” asked Roxana, timidly. Miss Irvington nodded. “Yes,” she said. ‘Do you like them ?” “Tiptop! Say, where’s my ev’ryday ones ?” “These are everyday ones, dear.” “‘Gee!—be they ?” gasped Roxana. “ But ain’t they kind o’ fix-uppish for that ?” Again Miss Irvington clapped her hands, and again she fell to writing. “Ain’t they?” persisted Roxana. “Hm-m; very likely, my dear, very likely,’ murmured Miss Irvington, ab- stractedly, making her pencil fly the faster. When she looked up again Roxana was back before the mirror trying to curl a strand of straight red hair over a pudgy finger. At six o’clock Mrs. Briggs, Miss Irving- ton, and Roxana went down to dinner. The wide halls, mirror-adorned elevator, and sumptuously appointed dining-room struck Roxana dumb with wonder. She ate what was ordered for her without a word of comment. Not until after the coffee was served to the two ladies did Roxana speak. Then she whispered to Miss Irvington, “Be them yours—them teeny little spoons ?” ““No, dear.” “Please, mayn’t I jest take one a jiffy?” “Why, certainly,” smiled Miss Irving- ton. A minute later the three left the table and filed slowly out of the dining-room. Immediately after breakfast the next morning, Miss Irvington settled herself comfortably with pencil and paper, and fixed her eyes expectantly on Roxana, who was sitting, shy and nervous, in the opposite chair. It had been decided that Roxana should not enter school until the following Monday, and Miss Irvington meant to make the most of this golden opportunity. Fora time the two stared into each other’s faces without speaking; then Roxana stirred restlessly. Miss Irvington tapped the floor with her foot. “Well,” she said, showing some im- patience, ‘“‘why don’t you do something ?” “Do—s-something ?” faltered Roxana. “Yes; something funny, pathetic—any- thing; something natural. I want you to act out just your natural self.” Mary, dusting the piano, coughed gently. “If I might make so bold as to suggest, ma’am,” she began, deprecatingly, ‘yer can’t tell nothin’ by jest sittin’ down an’ watchin’ of ’em. Yer have ter catch ’em on the sly.” An inarticulate cry broke from Roxana’s lips. Her right hand flew to her dress- skirt and clutched the folds convulsively, while a crimson flush blotted out the freckles on the cheek, the nose, and even on the forehead. A sound, which in anyone else would have been a sniff, came from Mary. “Tf I might make so bold again, ma’am,” she observed, crisply, “I should say it might be well to ask that young miss what she’s a-hidin’.” “Tt ain’t yours, it ain’t—truly it ain’t!” almost sobbed Roxana. At a gesture from Miss Irvington, Mary crossed to the little girl’s side and forcibly unclasped the small fingers. Securely pinned between two folds of the skirt she found a richly chased after-dinner coffee spoon. “Why, where—” began Miss Irvington, dazedly; then her face lighted up. ‘Oh, she took it last night. Why, that’s splen- did—splendid!” she cried, patting the paper in her lap and arranging it ready to write. Mary’s jaw dropped. Even Mrs. Briggs was stirred from her habitual calm. “My dear niece — splendid!” she gasped. “ Why, it’s nothing but common stealing!” Something seemed to snap in Miss Ir- vington’s brain. The red flew to her face and burned hot in her cheeks. “Stealing? Why, of course it was! I— I quite forgot. Roxana, how could you do it?” “Why, do you care?” demanded Rox- ana, honest amazement in her eyes. “‘Most certainly I do.” ‘But it wa’n’t yours!” “That makes no difference. It was some one’s, and I am inexpressibly shocked and grieved.” “But I—you—oh-h!” sobbed Roxana, throwing herself on the floor at Miss Ir- vington’s feet. “I didn’t think—I didn’t know—truly, I didn’t s’pose you’d care. Oh, please ter hit me, beat me—heaps an’

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heaps; but don’t send me away—don’t send me away!” A queer choking feeling came into Miss Irvington’s throat. She put up her hand and pulled at her collar; she thought it must be tight. “There, there, I—er— won’t you get up?” she ‘ said, desperately. ‘‘I—I think I’ve got a sugar- plum somewhere.” The spoon was re- turned to its owner with an apology that said ji something about ‘‘chil- ‘ dren’s carelessness,” and Roxana was carefully in- structed as to the rights of property holders, both by Mrs. Briggs and by Mary. Miss Irvington, also, attempted to say something on the sub- ject, but a chance re- mark from Roxana set her busily to writing, and it ended in Roxana’s going to sleep on the floor with her head _pillowed on Miss Irvington’s slip- pered feet. On the second day of Roxana’s life at The Kensington, some friends of Miss Irvington’s called: Miss Wheaton and her brother Ned, and Mrs. Kent. ana’s presence was de- manded at once. j “Do bring her in,” urged Mrs. Kent. “I saw her out with Mary 4 yesterday.” ‘So did I,” chimed in Ned Wheaton; then, with a shameless bid for Miss Irvington’s favor, he ad- ded, ‘‘She’s a pretty little thing, isn’t she?” He almost forgot his manners and stared, when Miss Irvington turned to him in un- mistakable disappointment. “Dear me! Do you think so?” she asked, plaintively. ‘‘Now I tried to get a homely one. I’m sure J thought her homely enough!” On the Trail of the Intangible (et

——— Rox- MW }

27 Wheaton opened his lips, but closed them without speaking. Roxana had ap- peared in the doorway. “Come here, dear,” called Miss Ir- vington. ‘‘Here are some ladies and I \

LT S| SSNs ~ | Ny | Vf, Uy MY; VY Yh jdff Y/ | y y Lh \y/ J hid J 4/ | Yi} yf f tif | Wi Life f/ i WAY fbi; | = V { — LV 4, UY a4 ANH Y yf = \\ === ee - Ss \_~ a a. z it <<, ** GEE, AIN’T I SWELL!” to Roxana advanced slowly, her hands be- hind her back. “Well, well, my little maid, so you’ve come to live here?” began Wheaton, pleas- antly. Roxana nodded. a gentleman who want see you.”

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28 Cosmopolitan Magazine “And how do you like it?” asked Mrs. Kent. There was no answer. “Don’t you think it’s a pretty place?” hazarded Mrs. Kent again. Still no reply. Roxana worked her tongue out of the corner of her mouth, and dug one small boot into the carpet. “Come, dear, speak up,’ encouraged Miss Irvington. ‘‘If you like it here, you surely are not afraid to say so. Come, dear, don’t you think it is a nice place?” “You jest bet I do! It’s bully—bang- up!” exploded Roxana, in one burst. “Oh!” gasped Mrs. Kent and Miss Wheaton involuntarily, while the man said ‘““By Jove!” under his breath. Miss Ir- vington felt a vague unrest. ‘““You see, Roxana is—is original,’ she explained, feebly. “Yes, she—is,”’ smiled Mrs. Kent; and Miss Irvington’s unrest speedily became less vague. “‘T—I have told her to be natural—per- fectly natural,’ added Miss Irvington, feverishly. “How delightful!” murmured Mrs. Kent. ‘‘And so—er—unusual, don’t you know!” ‘“‘Yes, I think so, too,” cried’ Miss Irving- ton, eagerly; then she caught sight of Miss Wheaton’s face. Her own flushed scarlet. ‘‘Er—Roxana, you—you may go now, I think,” she said, hurriedly. ‘‘T’ll call you again when I want you.” Roxana went. She backed toward the door, her finger in her mouth, and her eyes taking slow and admiring inventory of the visitors’ toilets. Miss Irvington did not send for Roxana again, neither then, nor later at the earnest instigation of other callers. In Miss Ir- vington’s thoughts was a perplexed wonder as to why “‘copy” was so delightful at some times and so disquieting at others. Miss Irvington was sorely puzzled during the next few days to find she had so little time to write. Her mind teemed with new and startling ideas, and her fingers fairly tingled to put them on paper. But just so sure as she settled herself at her desk, Roxana broke a vase, sailed boats in the bath tub, painted the illustrations of an édition-de-luxe, cut the pictures from an unread magazine, came to blows with Mary, or burst into a storm of angry words because she could not pass hours riding up and down in the elevator. Nor was this all. Such time as was not spent in the mischief itself was given over to a no less active repentance of the same; and, pray, how could one write with strong little arms clasped about one’s neck or one’s knees? with tear-wet cheeks pressed against one’s face or one’s feet ? and with, all the while, a terrible din of sobs and wails in one’s ears? Certainly Miss Irvington could not. But even as the mischief—together with its attendant repentance—lessened, there came little added time which Miss Irvington could call her own. Roxana, with all the strength of her fierce, unruly little heart, worshiped her benefactress. She showed it by never, willingly, being separated from her. She hung over the back of her chair, played with her rings and bangles, insisted on ‘‘doing” Miss Irvington’s hair a new way every other day, and, when weary of all this, sat at her feet and demanded a lucid and scientific explanation of all known problems ranging from the reason for a star’s twinkling to how Miss Irvington could find enough money to live in this nice house when Aunt Betsy in Pie Alley couldn’t get hold of enough to buy even what she wanted to eat. Undoubtedly interesting as all this was to Miss Irvington, there was yet a flaw some- where. ‘‘For,” as she plaintively ex- pressed it one day to a friend, ‘‘it’s all very nice to have ‘copy,’ but if the ‘copy’ leaves no time to copy, pray, what can a body do?” School proved at first not an unalloyed joy; but after the flurry, caused by Miss Irvington’s requesting the teacher to see that Roxana was left perfectly natural, had passed, things moved with less fric- tion. Horrified exclamations and earnest explanations on the teacher’s part soon brought Miss Irvington into a proper ap- preciation of the fitness of. things; and Roxana’s vocabulary and morals were taken sharply in hand. Roxana had been a member of Miss Irvington’s family four months when Miss Irvington’s cousin came with her little daughter Constance for a visit. Constance Barnard was seven years old, and one of those curly-headed, blue-eyed, angelic- faced children who speedily make everyone captive. Even Miss Irvington herself be- stowed an astonishing number of caresses and endearing epithets on her—a fact which was not lost on a certain freckle-

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faced, red-haired child who had recently developed an unpleasant habit of sulking whole hours in the corner. It was after the departure of these guests that Roxana began to slip away to her room whenever opportunity offered. If cau- tiously followed and watched, she was found to be twisting her limbs and body into curious shapes and contortions. Once, scantily clad, and in the chill gray dawn of a May morning, she was discovered by the janitor walking barefoot in the tiny grass- plot before The Kensington. When she began to refuse sweets and pastries, Miss Irvington took alarm and seriously feared for her reason. The climax came one morning when a series of screams, a puff of smoke, and the smell of fire sent the three women hurrying to Roxana’s room. The blazing curtain was torn from the window and smothered in a rug; the flaming gas-jet was turned off, and Roxana was caught up into Miss Ir- vington’s arms in a wonderfully short time. The three women gasped in dismay at sight of the poor-little freckled face with its singed eyebrows, blistered forehead, and smutched cheeks. “Why, my dear! what does this mean ?” demanded Miss Irvington. “T—I was tryin’ to curl my hair,” sobbed Roxana. ‘‘Oh, Aunt Kate, Aunt Kate, I do so want to be pretty! Can’t I, someway, somehow ?” Again Miss Irvington felt that curious choking in her throat, and again she tugged at the collar, which surely must be tight. ‘Pretty? Why, my dear, who cares about being pretty ?” she stammered. “T do,” wailed Roxana. “‘I do! Maybe you’d kiss me then, and pat my cheek, and wind my hair ’round your finger and— and call it ‘stolen sunlight’!” “Why, my dear, I will now, of course. I —Aunt Martha, take her—do!” broke off Miss Irvington suddenly, rising to her feet and almost running from the room. ‘I— T’ll get linen and salve and things,” she called tremulously over her shoulder. It was some time, however, before the linen, salve and things were forthcom- ing. There was.an unwonted moisture in Miss Irvington’s eyes which would not let her see, and there was a curious trembling in Miss Irvington’s limbs which would not let her walk. But after the cruel burns were dressed, the whole story On the Trail of the Intangible 29 came out; and it was Miss Irvington’s hand that took the book from beneath Roxana’s biggest doll’s bedstead, and it was Miss Irvington’s eye that grew moist again over the title, ‘How to be Beautiful.” ““Why, where—” she paused in plain mystification, and Mary explained. ** An’ sure it’s from me, ma’am, she got it. She saw it one day in my room, an’ she clean pestered the life out o’ me with her teasin’ till I let her have it. It tells all about them phiz’cal cult’rin’, an’ what ter eat, yer know.” “Oh, I—see,”’ said Miss Irvington, with a queer little catch in her voice. Roxana’s burns were scarcely healed when Mrs. Kent and a strange lady called. Mary was out, and Roxana herself had ushered the ladies into the parlor and gone to find Aunt Kate. She was scarcely out of sight—and not out of hearing—when the strange voice asked, ‘*Belle, what did Kathleen see in that child ?” Out in the hall Roxana stopped short, her hands clutched tightly together. ““See? Why, ‘copy,’ to be sure. She got her for ‘copy.’ Everyone knows that,” said Mrs. Kent. Miss Irvington, coming into the hall a moment later, found a motionless, wide- eyed child. “T heard the bell, and—why, Roxana!” cried Miss Irvington. Roxana pointed to the door and fled. Miss Irvington, mildly puzzled, walked into the parlor and greeted her guests. Copy! To Roxana it had a fearful sound—un- canny, incomprehensible. So she was “copy ”’—that was all. She pinched herself, then cried aloud at the pain. But what was “copy”? If she only knew! To be sure, there were the lines in her writing book; but she wasn’t a line in a writing book! Mechanically her eyes wandered about the room, then flashed with sudden inspiration. The dictionary! That was where Aunt Kate always looked when she wanted the meaning of a word. Another moment, and Roxana had darted over to the dictionary and singled out the c’s. Laboriously, and with infinite pains, she spelled out the long words, not one of which could she understand. ‘A duplication,

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30 Cosmopolitan Magazine transcription, imitation, or reproduction of something .” Still on went the finger; “that which is not an original.” The finger paused, and Roxana sat up straight. She remembered lots of times when Aunt Kate had said she was an “original.” To be sure, she did not know what an “original” was, but it must be nice—the way Aunt Kate said it. And yet, here—it was puzzling—very! Down went Roxana’s head, and on went the stubby forefinger. No, there was nothing — nothing that she could understand. Suddenly Roxana caught her breath with a little gasp. Her eyes were on the words, ‘‘In printing.” Printing! Aunt.Kate had something to do with printing. This must be where she could find what “copy” meant! Feverishly she spelled out the definition, “‘ Written or printed matter given to the printer to be reproduced in type.” The book closed with a bang and dropped to the floor. ‘‘Written or printed matter given to the printer’”’—she knew what that meant; and yet—she was not “written” or “printed!” She could not be given to the printer! Roxana sat and thought; and as she thought, her hands grew cold and her little face grew old and pinched. One by one she went over Aunt Kate’s words and actions; one by one they burned them- selves into her grieved, terrified conscious- ness. At last she knew. She, she herself had been watched and studied. Her acts, her words, her very looks—all were only for ‘“‘copy!” She, she was to be written down in words and given to this unknown printer! With a little cry, Roxana sprang to her feet. A minute later she was in her room and pulling at the frocks hanging in her closet. Ten minutes later, clad in the old dress, coat, and hat of the asylum days, she tiptoed out of the apartment, and then went out on the street. When the callers were gone, Miss Irving- ton asked for Roxana. No one had seen her. By night the police were on the look- out for a freckle-faced, red-haired girl, and Miss Irvington was walking her apart- ment from end to end. How quiet it all was! How noisy the clocks were! Strange how used she had grown to that small child’s presence! It was silly of her, of course, and yet Miss Irvington caught up a red tam-o’- shanter and buried her face in its fuzzy depths. It was nine o’clock the next morning when the half-accusing, wholly dignified note came from the matron of the orphan asylum. Roxana, after a night of wander- ing, had found her way there. The ma- tron awaited Miss Irvington’s explana- tion. When Miss Irvington was ushered into Roxana’s presence, she found a red-eyed, drawn-faced child. At a sign from Miss Irvington, the matron left the room. “Roxana, why did you run away?” began Miss Irvington, gently. There was no answer. ‘*Wasn’t I kind to you?” Still silence. ‘“Wasn’t everyone kind to you?” Roxana turned away her head. “Come, dear, there is some mystery here —something I do not understand,” con- tinued Miss Irvington. ‘‘Won’t you go back with me now, and be my own little girl once more ?” There was an instant’s pause. The lips quivered, and the small face twitched convulsively. Then the floods came, and Roxana was in her old position, down at Miss Irvington’s feet. “T—I’m not your little girl,’ sobbed Roxana, as soon as she could speak. ‘‘I— I’m only ‘copy’—she said so!” With a sudden movement Miss Irving- ton stooped and gathered Roxana in her arms. ‘“** Copy—copy!’—who said you were ‘copy’?” she cried, fiercely. ‘‘You’re the dearest little girl that ever was, and I love you, love you, love you!” “‘Oh-h!” breathed Roxana, ecstatically, with a happy little nestle. If you ask any of Kathleen Irvington’s friends about Kathleen now, you will prob- ably hear this: ‘‘Kathleen? Oh, the last I heard she had taken a house in the country—better for Roxana, you know. To Kathleen, the world whirls around for Roxana! And really, the child is developing fast; actually growing pretty, too. Upon my word, she is. You know she always did have nice eyes! . . . . Write?—Kathleen? Not much, I fancy. She says she hasn’t time, and has rather lost her interest.”

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4and Mrs. Bowman had just bm) finished their third game of i] draughts. It had been a ) difficult game for Mr. Clark, 4 the lady’s mind having been so occupied with other mat- 2» ters that he had had great difficulty in losing. Indeed we B Z =3J it was only by pushing an oc- casional piece of his own off the board that he had succeeded. “ A penny for your thoughts, Amelia,” he said at last. Mrs. Bowman smiled faintly. were far away,” she confessed. Mr. Clark assumed an expression of great solemnity; allusions of this kind to the late Mr. Bowman were only too frequent. He was fortunate when they did not grow into reminiscences of a career too blameless for successful imitation. “T suppose,” said the widow slowly, “I suppose I ought to.tell you. I’ve had a letter.” Mr. Clark’s face relaxed. “It took me back to the old scenes,” continued Mrs. Bowman, dreamily. “I have never kept anything back from you, “ They Lilustrated by Will Owen Nathaniel. I told you all about the first man I ever thought anything of—Charlie Tucker ?”’ Mr. Clark cleared his throat. “ You did,” he said, a trifle hoarsely; “more than once.” “T’ve just had a letter from him,” said Mrs. Bowman, simpering. “Fancy, after all these years—— Poor fellow, he has only just heard of my husband’s death, and by the way he writes wi She broke off and drummed nervously on the table. “He hasn’t heard about me, you mean ?”’ said Mr. Clark, after waiting to give her time to finish. “ How should he ?”’ said the widow. “Tf he heard one thing, he might have heard the other,’ retorted Mr. Clark. “Better write and tell him. Tell him that in six weeks’ time you’ll be Mrs. Clark. Then perhaps he won’t write again.” Mrs. Bowman sighed. “I thought after all these years that he must be dead,” she said slowly, “or else married. But he says in his letter that he has kept single for my sake.” “Well, he’ll be able to go on doing it,” said Mr. Clark; “it’ll come easy to him after so much practice.” 3n

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“He—he says in his letter that he is com- ing to see me,” said the widow in a low voice, “to—to—this evening.” “Coming to see you?’’ repeated Mr. Clark, sharply. “What for?” “To talk over old times he says,” was the reply. “I expect he has altered a great deal; he was a fine-looking fellow. And so dash- ing; after I gave him up he didn’t care what he did. The last I heard of him, he had gone abroad.” Mr. Clark muttered something under his breath and, in a mechanical fashion, began to build little castles with the draughts. He was just about to add to an already swaying structure when a thundering rat-tat-tat at the door dispersed the draughts to the four corners of the room. The servant opened the door, and the next moment ushered in Mrs. Bowman’s visitor. A tall, good-looking man in a frock coat, with a huge spray of mignonette in his but- tonhole, met the critical gaze of Mr. Clark. He paused at the door, and striking an atti- tude, pronounced in tones of great amaze- ment the Christian name of the lady of the house. “Mr. Tucker!”’ said the widow, blushing. “The same girl,” said the visitor, looking round wildly, “the same as the day she left me. Not a bit changed; not a hair differ- ent.”’ He took her extended hand, and bending over it, kissed it respectfully. “Tt’s—it’s very strange to see you again, Mr. Tucker,” said Mrs. Bowman, with- drawing her hand in some confusion. “¢Mr. Tucker,’ ’’ said that gentleman re- proachfully. “It used to be ‘Charlie.’ ”’ Mrs. Bowman blushed again, and with a side glance at the frowning Mr. Clark, called her visitor’s attention to him and introduced him. The gentlemen shook hands stiffly. “ Any friend of yours is a friend of mine,” said Mr. Tucker, with a patronizing air. “How are you, sir?”’ Mr. Clark replied that he was well, and after some hesitation said that he hoped he was the same. Mr. Tucker took a chair and, leaning back, stroked his huge mustache and devoured the widow with his eyes. “Fancy seeing you again,” said the latter in some embarrassment. “How did you find me out ?”’ “Tt’s a long story,” replied the visitor, “but I always had the idea that we should 32 Cosmopolitan Magazine meet again. Your photograph has been with me all over the world. In the back- woods of Canada, in the bush of Australia it has been my one comfort and guiding star. If ever I was tempted to do wrong, I took your photograph out and _ looked at it.” “T s’pose you took it out pretty often ?’’ said Mr. Clark restlessly. ‘To look at, I mean,” he added hastily, 2s Mrs. Bowman gave him an indignant glance. “Every day,” said the visitor solemnly. “Once when I injured myself out hunting and was five days without food or drink, it was the only thing that kept me alive.” Mr. Clark’s question as to the size of the photograph was lost in Mrs. Bowman’s ex- clamations of pity. “T once lived on two ounces of gruel and a cup of milk a day for ten days,” Mr. Clark said, trying to catch the widow’s eye. “ After the ten days——” “When the Indians found me I was de- lirious,” interrupted Mr. Tucker ina hushed voice, “and when I came to my senses I found that they were calling me ‘ Amelia.’ ”’ Mr. Clark attempted to relieve the situa- tion by a jocose inquiry as to whether he was wearing a mustache at the time, but Mrs. Bowman frowned him down. He began to whistle under his breath, and Mrs. Bowman promptly said, “ Hah !”’ “But how did you discover me?”’ she in- quired, turning again to the visitor. “Wandering over the world,” continued Mr. Tucker, “here to-day and there to- morrow, and unable to settle down any- where, I returned to Northtown about two years ago. Three days since in a tram car I heard your name mentioned. I pricked up my ears and listened; when I heard that you were free, I could hardly contain my- self. I got into conversation with the lady and got your address, and after traveling fourteen hours, here I am.” “How very extraordinary,” said the widow; “I wonder who it could have been. Did she mention her name?” Mr. Tucker shook his head. Inquiries as to the lady’s appearance, age and dress were alike fruitless. “There was a mist before my eyes,”’ he explained. “I couldn’t realize it, I couldn’t believe in my good fortune.” “T can’t think ”? began Mrs. Bowman. “What does it matter?’? inquired Mr. Tucker, softly. “ Here we are together again

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with life all before us, and the misunder- standings of long ago all forgotten.” Mr. Clark cleared his throat preparatory to speech, but a peremptory glance from Mrs. Bowman restrained him. “T thought you were dead,” she said, turning to the smiling Mr. Tucker. “I never dreamed of seeing you again.” “Nobody would,” chimed in Mr. Clark. “When do you go back ?” “Back ?”’ said the visitor. ‘“ Where?’ “ Australia,’ replied Mr. Clark, with a glance of defiance at the widow. “You A Love Knot 33 Mrs. Bowman with her hands folded in her lap regarded him with anxious solicitude. “T thought perhaps you ought to know,” said Mr. Clark. Mr. Tucker sat bolt upright and regarded him fixedly. “I wish you joy,” he said, in a hollow voice. “Thankee,” said Mr. Clark; “we expect to be pretty happy.” He smiled at Mrs. Bowman, but she made no response. Her looks wandered from one to the other, from the good- companion looking, interesting of her HE TOOK HER EXTENDED HAND, AND BENDING OVER IT, KISSED IT RESPECTFULLY must ha’ been missed a great deal all this time.” Mr. Tucker regarded him with a haughty stare. Then he bent toward Mrs. Bow- man. “Do you wish me to go back ?”’ he asked impressively. “We don’t wish either one way or the other,” said Mr. Clark, before the widow could speak. “It don’t matter to us.” “Wee” said Mr. Tucker, knitting his brows and gazing anxiously at Mrs. Bow- man. “We?” “We are going to be married in six weeks time,’’ said Mr. Clark. Mr. Tucker looked from one to the other in silent misery; then shielding his eyes with his hand, he averted his head. youth to the short, prosaic little man who was exulting only too plainly in the other’s discomfiture. Mr. Tucker rose with a sigh. by,” he said, extending his hand. “You are not going—yet?”’ said the widow. Mr. Tucker’s low-breathed “I must,” was just audible. The widow renewed her expostulations. “Perhaps he has got to catch a train,” said the thoughtful Mr. Clark. “No, sir,” said Mr. Tucker. “As a matter of fact I had taken a room at the George Hotel for a week, but I suppose I had better get back.” “No, why should you?”’ said Mrs. Bow- “ Good-

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34 Cosmopolitan Magazine man, with a rebellious glance at Mr. Clark. “Stay, and come in and see me sometimes and talk over old times. And Mr. Clark will be glad to see you, I’m sure. Won’t you, Nath—Mr. Clark ?”’ “T shall be—delighted,” said Mr. Clark, staring hard at the mantelpiece, “de- lighted.” Mr. Tucker thanked them both, and, after groping for some time for the hand of Mr. Clark, who was still intent upon the mantelpiece, pressed it warmly and with- drew. Mrs. Bowman saw him to the door, and a low-voiced colloquy, in which Mr. Clark caught the word “‘afternoon,”? ensued. By the time the widow returned to the room he was busy building with the draughts again. Mr. Tucker came the next day at three o’clock, and the day afterattwo. On the third morning he took Mrs. Bowman out for a walk, airily explaining to Mr. Clark, who met them on the way, that they had come out to call for him. The day after when Mr. Clark met them returning from a walk, he was assured that his silence of the day before was understood to indicate a distaste for exercise. “And you see I like a long walk,” said Mrs. Bowman, “and you are not what I should call a good walker.” “You never used to complain,” said Mr. Clark, “in fact it was generally you that used to suggest turning back.” “She wants to be amused as well,’’ re- marked Mr. Tucker; “then she doesn’t feel the fatigue.” Mr. Clark glared at him, and tlen short- ly declining Mrs. Bowman’s invitation to accompany them home on the ground that he required exercise, proceeded on his way. He carried himself so stiffly, and his manner was so fierce, that a well-meaning neighbor who had crossed the road to join him, and offer a little sympathy if occasion offered, talked of the weather for five minutes and inconsequentially faded away at a corner. Trimington as a whole watched the affair with amusement, although Mr. Clark’s friends adopted an inflection of voice in speaking to him which reminded him strongly of funerals. Mr. Tucker’s week was up, but the landlord of the George was responsible for the statement that he had postponed his departure indefinitely. Matters being in this state, Mr. Clark went round to the widow’s one evening with the air of a man who has made up his mind to decisive action. He entered the room with a bounce, and hardly deigning to notice the greeting of Mr. Tucker, planted himself in a chair and surveyed him grimly. “T thought I should find you here,” he remarked. “Well, I always am here, ain’t I?” re- torted Mr. Tucker, removing his cigar and regarding him with mild surprise. “Mr. Tucker is my friend,” interposed Mrs. Bowman. “I am the only friend he has got in Trimington. It’s natural he should be here.” Mr. Clark quailed at her glance. “ Peo- ple are beginning to talk,” he muttered feebly. “Talk ?”’ said the widow, with an air of mystification belied by her color. “What about ?” Mr. Clark quailed again. “ About— about our wedding,” he stammered. Mr. Tucker and the widow exchanged glances. Then the former took his cigar from his mouth, and with a_ hopeless gesture threw it into the grate. “Plenty of time to talk about that,’’ said Mrs. Bowman after a pause. . “Time is going,” remarked Mr. Clark. “T was thinking, if it was agreeable to you, of putting up the banns to-morrow.” “There—there’s no hurry,’ was the reply. “*Marry in haste, repent at leisure,’ ”’ quoted Mr. Tucker gravely. “Don’t you want me to put ’em up?” demanded Mr. Clark of Mrs. Bowman. “There’s no hurry,” said Mrs. Bowman again. “I—TI want time to think.” Mr. Clark rose and stood over her, and after a vain attempt to meet his gaze, she looked down at the carpet. “T understand,” he said loftily; “I am not blind.”’ “Tt isn’t my fault,” murmured the widow, drawing patterns with her toe on the car- t. “One can’t help their feelings.” Mr. Clark gave a short, hard laugh. “What about my feelings?’’ he said se- verely. “What about the life you have spoiled? I couldn’t have believed it of you.” “I’m sure I’m very sorry,” murmured Mrs. Bowman, “and anything that I can do I will. I never expected to see Charles again. And it was so sudden; it took me unawares. I hope we shall still be friends.”

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MR. CLARK MET THEM RETURNING “Friends!’”’ exclaimed Mr. Clark, with extraordinary vigor. “With him?” He folded his arms and regarded the pair with a bitter smile. Mrs. Bowman, quite unable to meet his eyes, still gazed intently at the floor. “You have made me the laughingstock of Trimington,”’ pursued Mr. Clark. “You have wounded me in my tenderest feelings; you have destroyed my faith in women. I shall never be the same man again. I hope that you will never find out what a terrible mistake you’ve made.” Mrs. Bowman made a noise halfway between a sniff and a sob; Mr. Tucker’s sniff was unmistakable. “T will return your presents to-morrow,” said Mr. Clark, rising. ‘“Good-by, for- ever!’ He paused at the door, but Mrs. Bowman did not look up. A second later the front door closed, and she heard him walk rapidly away. For some time after his departure she preserved a silence which Mr. Tucker en- deavored in vain to break. He took a chair by her side, and at the third attempt managed to gain possession of her hand. “T deserved all he said,” she said at last. “Poor fellow, I hope he will do nothing desperate.” FROM A WALK “No, no,” said Mr. Tucker soothingly. “His eyes were quite wild,” continued the widow. “If anything happens to him I shall never forgive myself; I have spoiled his life.” Mr. Tucker pressed her hand and spoke of the well-known refining influence a hope- less passion for a good woman has on a man. He cited his own case as an example. “Disappointment spoiled my life so far as worldly success goes,’’ he said softly; “ but no doubt the discipline was good for me.” Mrs. Bowman smiled faintly and began to be a little comforted. Conversation shifted from the future of Mr. Clark to the past of Mr. Tucker, the widow’s curiosity as to the extent of the latter’s worldly suc- cess remaining unanswered by reason of Mr. Tucker’s sudden remembrance of a bearfight. Their future was discussed after supper, and the advisability of leaving Trimington considered at some length. The towns and villages of England were at their dis- posal, Mr. Tucker’s business, as it ap- peared, being independent of place. He drew a picture of life in a bungalow with modern improvements, at some seaside town, and, the cloth having been removed, took out his pocketbook and extracting an old envelope drew plans on the back. 35

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36 Cosmopolitan Magazine It was a delightful pastime and made Mrs. Bowman feel that she was twenty and beginning life again. She toyed with the pocketbook and complimented Mr. Tucker on his skill as a draughtsman. A letter or two fell out, and he explained them. Then a small newspaper cutting, which had fluttered out with them, met her eye. “A little veranda with roses climbing up it,” murmured Mr. Tucker, still drawing, “and a couple of . His pencil was arrested by an odd gasp- ing noise from the widow. He looked up and saw her sitting stiffly in her chair. Her face seemed swollen and colored in patches; her eyes were round and amazed. “Aren’t you well?” he inquired, rising in disorder. ; Mrs. Bowman opened her lips, but no sound came from them. Then she gave a long shivering sigh. “Heat of the room too much for you?” inquired the other anxiously. Mrs. Bowman took another long shiver- ing breath. Still incapable of speech she took the slip of paper in her trembling fingers and an involuntary exclamation of dismay broke from Mr. Tucker. She dabbed fiercely at her burning eyes with her handkerchief and read it again. TUCKER.—If this should meet the eye of Charles Tucker who knew Amelia Wyborn twenty-five years ago, he will hear of something greatly to his advantage by communicating with N.C., Royal Hotel, Northtown. Mrs. Bowman found speech at last. “*N. C.,’ Nathaniel Clark,” she said in broken tones. “So that is where he went. Oh, what a fool I’ve been! Oh, what a simple fool!’’ Mr. Tucker gave a deprecatory cough. “T—I had forgotten it was there,” he said nervously. “Yes,” breathed the widow; “I can quite believe that.” “I was going to show you later,” de- clared the other, regarding her carefully. “T was really. I couldn’t bear the idea of keeping a secret from you long.”’ Mrs. Bowman smiled—a terrible smile. “The audacity of the man,” she broke out, “to stand there and lecture me on my be- havior. To talk about his spoiled life and all the time 5 She got up and walked about the room, angrily brushing aside the proffered atten- tions of Mr. Tucker. “Laughingstock of Trimington is he?” she stormed. “He shall be worse than that before I have done with him. The wickedness of the man, the artfulness.” “That’s what I thought,” said Mr. Tucker, shaking his head. “I said to him e “You're as bad,” said the widow, turning on him fiercely. “All the time you two men were talking at each other, you were laughing in your sleeves at me. And I sat there like a child taking it all in. I’ve no doubt you met every night and arranged what you were to do next day.” Mr. Tucker’s lips twitched. “I would do more than that to win you, Amelia,” he said humbly. “You'll have to,” was the grim reply. “Now I want to hear all about this from the beginning. And don’t keep anything from me or it’ll be the worse for you.” She sat down again and motioned him to proceed. “When I saw the advertisement in the ‘Northtown Chronicle,’’? began Mr. Tucker in a husky voice, “I danced with ‘i “Never mind about that,” interrupted the widow. “T went to the hotel and saw Mr. Clark,” resumed Mr. Tucker, somewhat crestfallen. “When I heard that you were a widow, all the old times came back to me again. The years fell from me like a mantle. Once again I saw myself walking with you over the footpath to Cooper’s farm, once again I felt your hand in mine. Your voice sounded in my ears io “You saw Mr. Clark,” the widow re- minded him. “He had heard all about our early love from you,” said Mr. Tucker, “and as a last desperate chance for freedom he had come down to try and hunt me up, and in- duce me to take you off his hands.” Mrs. Bowman uttered a smothered ex- clamation. “He tempted me for two days,” said Mr. Tucker gravely. “The temptation was too great and I fell. Besides that, I wanted to rescue you from the clutches of such a man.” “Why didn’t he tell me himself?’ in- quired the widow. “Just what I asked him,” said the other;

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“but he said that you were much too fond of him to give him up. He is not worthy of you, Amelia; he is fickle. He has got his eye on another lady.” “What?” said the widow, with sudden loudness. Mr. Tucker nodded mournfully. “ Miss Hackbutt,” he said slowly; “I saw her the other day, and what he can see in her I can’t think.” “Miss Hackbutt ?”’ repeated the widow, in a smothered voice. ‘“ Miss ” She got up and began to pace the room again. A Love Knot 37 excitement has been too much for you. May I come round at the usual time to- morrow ?’’ “Yes,” said the widow. She took the advertisement from the table and, folding it carefully, placed it in her purse. Mr. Tucker withdrew as she looked up. He walked back to the George, deep in thought, and, over a couple of pipes in bed, thought over the events of the evening. He fell asleep at last and dreamed that he and Miss Hackbutt were being united in STILL INCAPABLE OF SPEECH SHE TOOK THE SLIP OF PAPER IN HER TREMBLING “He must be blind,” said Mr. Tucker positively. Mrs. Bowman stopped suddenly and stood regarding him. There was a light in her eye which made him feel anything but comfortable. He was glad when she transferred her gaze to the clock. She looked at it so long that he murmured something about going. ““Good-by,” she said. Mr. Tucker began to repeat his excuses, but she interrupted him. “Not now,” she said decidedly. “I’mtired. Good night.” Mr. Tucker pressed her hand. “Good night,” he said tenderly. “I am afraid the FINGERS the bonds of holy matrimony by the Rev. Nathaniel Clark. The vague misgivings of the previous night disappeared in the morning sunshine. He shaved carefully and spent some time in the selection of a tie. Over an excellent breakfast he arranged further explanations and excuses for the appeasement of Mrs. Bowman. He was still engaged on the task when he started to call on her. Halfway to the house he arrived at the conclusion that he was looking too cheerful. His face took on an expression of deep seriousness, only to give way the next moment to one of the

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38 Cosmopolitan Magazine blankest amazement. In front of him and approaching with faltering steps was Mr. Clark, and, leaning trustfully on his arm, the comfortable figure of Mrs. Bowman. Her brow was unrufiled and her lips smiling. “ Beautiful morning,” she said pleasantly, as they met. “Lovely,” murmured the wondering Mr. Tucker, trying, but in vain, to catch the eye of Mr. Clark. “T have been paying an early visit,” said the widow, still smiling. “I surprised you, didn’t I, Nathaniel ?”’ “You did,” said Mr. Clark, in an un- earthly voice. “We got talking about last night,” con- tinued the widow, “and Nathaniel started pleading with me to give him another chance. I suppose that I am soft-hearted, but he was so miserable—you were never so miserable in your life before, were you Nathaniel ?”’ “Never,” said Mr. @lark, in the same strange voice. “He was so wretched that at last I gave way,” said Mrs. Bowman with a simper. “Poor fellow, it was such a shock to him that he hasn’t got back his cheerfulness yet.” “Tndeed!’’ said Mr. Tucker. “He'll be all right soon,” said Mrs. Bow- man in confidential tones. “We are on the way to put our banns up, and once that is done he will feel safe. You are not really afraid of losing me again, are you, Na- thaniel ?”’ ‘Mr. Clark shook his head, and meeting the eye of Mr. Tucker in the process, favored him with a glance of such utter venom that the latter was almost startled. “ Good-by, Mr. Tucker,” said the widow, holding out her hand. “Nathaniel did think of inviting you to come to my wedding, but perhaps it is best not. However, if I alter my mind I will get him to advertise for youagain. Good-by.” She placed her arm in Mr. Clark’s again and led him slowly away. Mr. Tucker stood watching them for some time, and then with a glance in the direction of the George, where he had left a very small portmanteau, he did a hasty sum in com- parative values and made his way to the railway station. MR, TUCKER STOOD WATCHING THEM FOR SOME TIME

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In the Days of the Comet BY H. G. WELLS Illustrated by Henri Lanos BOOK THE FIRST—THE COMET CHAPTER THE FIFTH—THE PURSUIT OF THE TWO LOVERS—(CONTINUED) e Synorsis: The narrator, William Leadford, is telling of events in his youth before the Great Change. in a great comet whose path is approaching the earth’s orbit. Through his friend Parload he has become a socialist, and is also interested This fact is more important to him than the spread of socialism, for what will happen if the comet strikes the earth? Meanwhile, times are bad in England, owing to strikes, lockouts, overproduction, and the in- trusion of American products in the market. England and Germany. broken with him on account of his beliefs. to visit her. son of her father’s employer. ford follows them, carrying a revolver he has bought. And, besides, war has just broken out between Leadford has been engaged to marry Nettie Stuart, but she has The young man still loves the girl and continues On one of these visits he learns that she has eloped with Edward Verrall, the The couple have gone to a resort on the east coast. Lead- Arriving, he learns that they are probably to be found at a little summer colony known as the “ bungalow village.” V CAME up over the little ridge PA(} and discovered the bungalow y village I had been seeking, {9 nestling in a crescent lap of «dunes. A door slammed, the two runners had vanished. #3 1 halted, staring. ? There was a group of three iWon (A P| eas bungalows nearer to me than BAAD the others. Into one of these three they had gone, and I was too late to see which. All had doors and windows carelessly open, and none showed a light. This place, upon which I had at last happened, was a fruit of the reaction of artistic-minded and carelessly living peo- ple, against the costly and uncomfortable social stiffness of the more formal seaside resorts of that time. It was, you must un- derstand, the custom of the steam rail- way companies to sell their cars after they had been obsolete for a sufficient length of time, and some genius had hit upon the possibility of turning these into little, habit- able cabins for the summer holiday. ‘The thing had become a fashion with a certain bohemian-spirited class; they added cabin to cabin, and these little improvised homes, gayly painted and with broad verandas and supplementary lean-tos added to their ac- commodation, made the brightest contrast conceivable to the dull rigidities of the de- corous resorts. Of course, there were many discomforts in such camping that had to be faced cheerfully, and so this broad, sandy beach was sacred to high spirits and the young. Art, muslin and banjoes, Chinese lanterns and frying, are leading “notes,” I find, in the impression of those who once knew such places well. I saw the thing as no gathering of light hearts and gay idleness, but grimly, after the manner of poor men poisoned by the suppression of all their cravings after joy. To the poor man, to the grimy worker, beauty and cleanness were absolutely denied; out of a life of greasy dirt, of muddied desires, they watched their happier fellows with a bitter envy and foul, tormenting suspicions. Fancy a world in which the common people held love to be a sort of beastliness, own sister to being drunk! There was, in the old time, always some- thing cruel at the bottom of this business of sexual love. At least that is the impres- sion I have brought with me across the gulf of the Great Change. To succeed in love seemed such triumph as no other suc- cess could give, but to fail was as if one was tainted. 39

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40 Cosmopolitan Magazine I felt no sense of singularity that this thread of savagery should run through these emotions of mine, and become now the whole strand of these emotions. I be- lieved, and I think I was right in believing, that the love of all true lovers was a sort of defiance then, that they closed a system in each other’s arms and mocked the world without. You loved against the world; and these two loved atme. They had their business with each other, under the threat of a watchful fierceness. A sword, a sharp sword, the keenest edge in life, lay among | their roses. Whatever may be true of this for others, for me and my imagination, at any rate, it was altogether true. I was never for dalliance; I was never a jesting lover. I wanted fiercely; I made love impatiently. Perhaps I had written irrelevant love letters for that very reason; because with this stark theme I could not play. All the nearer bungalows were very still now. If I walked softly to them, from open windows, from something seen or overheard, I might get a clue to guide me. Should I advance circuitously, creeping upon them, or should I walk straight to the door? It was bright enough for her to recognize me clearly at a distance of many paces. “Boom!” the sound crept upon my senses, and then again it came. I turned impatiently, as one turns upon an impertinence, and beheld a great iron- clad not four miles out, steaming fast across the dappled silver, and from its funnels sparks, intensely red, poured out into the night. As I turned, came the hot flash of its guns, firing seaward, and answering this, red flashes and a streaming smoke in the line between sea and sky. With a shuddering hiss, a rocket from a headland beyond the village leaped up and burst hot-gold against the glare, and the sound of the third and fourth guns reached me. The windows of the dark bungalows, one after another, leaped out, squares of ruddy brightness that flared and flickered and became steadily bright. Dark heads appeared, looking seaward, a door opened and sent out a brief lane of yellow to mingle and be lost in the comet’s bright- ness. That brought me back to the busi- ness in hand. I became aware of the voices of people calling to one another in the village. A white-robed, hooded figure, some man in a bathing wrap, absurdly suggestive of an Arab in his burnous, came out from one of the nearer bungalows, and stood clear and still and shadowless in the glare. He put his hands to shade his seaward eyes, and shouted to people within. First one, and then two, other wrappered figures came out of the bungalows to join the first. His arm pointed seaward, and his voice, a full tenor, rose in explanation. I could hear some of the words. “It’s a German!” he said. ‘‘She’s caught.” Some one disputed that, and there fol- lowed a little indistinct babble of argu- ment. I went on slowly in the circuit I had marked out, watching these people as I went. They shouted together with such a com- mon intensity of direction that I halted and looked seaward. I saw the tall fountain flung by a shot that had just missed the great warship. A second rose still nearer us, a third, and a fourth, and then, a great uprush of dust, a whirling cloud, leaped out of the headland whence the rocket had come, and spread, with a slow deliberation, right and left. Hard on that an enormous crash, and the man with the full voice leaped and cried, “Hit!” Let me see! Of course, I had to go round beyond the bungalows, and then come up toward the group from _be- hind. A high-pitched, woman’s voice called: “Honeymooners! honeymooners! Come out and see!” Something gleamed in the shadow of the nearer bungalow, and a man’s voice an- swered from within. What he said, I did not catch, but suddenly I heard Net- tie calling very distinctly, ‘‘We’ve been bathing.” The man who had first come out shouted: “Don’t you hear the guns? They’re fighting—not five miles from shore.” “Eh?” answered from the bungalow, and a window opened. “Out there!” I did not hear the reply, because of the faint rustle of my own movements. Clearly, these people were all too much occupied by the battle to look in my direction, and so I walked now straight toward the dark- ness that held Nettie and the black desire of my heart.

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ig ee ome HIS ARM POINTED SEAWARD, AND I COULD HEAR SOME OF THE WORDS. “IT’S A GER- MAN!” HE SAID. “SHE’S CAUGHT”

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42 Cosmopolitan Magazine “Look!” cried some one, and pointed skyward. I glanced up, and behold! the sky was streaked with bright green trails. They radiated from a point halfway between the western horizon and the zenith; and within the shining clouds of the meteor, a stream- ing movement had begun, so that it seemed to be pouring both westwardly and back toward the east, with a crackling sound, as though the whole heaven was stippled over with phantom pistol shots. It seemed to me then, as if the meteor was coming to help me, descending with those thousand pistols like a curtain to fend off this un- meaning foolishness of the sea. To glance up at that streaky, stirring, light scum of the sky made one’s head swim. I stood for a moment dazed, and more than a little giddy. I had a curious instant of purcly speculative thought. Suppose, after all, the fanatics were right, and the world was coming to an end! What a score that would be for Parload! Then it came into my head that all these things were happening to consecrate my revenge! The war below, the heavens above, were the thunderous garment of my deed. I heard Nettie’s voice cry out not. fifty yards away, and my passion surged again. I was to return to her amid these terrors, bearing unanticipated death. It was fifty yards, forty yards, thirty yards—the little group of people, still heed- less of me, was larger and more important now, the green-shot sky, and the fighting ships were remoter. Some one darted out from the bungalow, with an interrupted question, and stopped, suddenly aware of me. It was Nettie, with some coquettish, dark wrap about her, and the green glare shining on her sweet face and white throat. I could see her expression, stricken with dismay and terrer at my advance, as though something had seized her by the heart and held her still—a target for my shots. “Boom!” came the ironclad’s gunshot like a command. ‘Bang!’ the bullet leaped from my hand. Do you know, I did not want to shoot her then. Indeed, I did not want to shoot her then! ‘‘ Bang!” and I had fired again, still striding on, and— each time it seemed I had missed. She moved a step or so toward me, still staring, and then some one intervened, and near beside her I saw young Verrall. A heavy stranger, the man in the hooded bath gown, a fat, foreign-looking man, came out of nowhere like a shield before them. He seemed a preposterous inter- ruption. His face was full of astonish- ment and terror. He rushed across my path with arms extended and open hands, as one might try to stop a runaway horse. By an enormous effort I resisted a me- chanical impulse to shoot through his fat body. Anyhow, I knew I mustn’t shoot him. Fora moment I was in doubt. Then I became very active, turned aside abruptly and dodged his pawing arm to the left, and so found two others irresolutely in my way. I fired a third shot in the air, just over their heads, and ran at them. They hastened left and right. I pulled up and faced about within a yard of a foxy-faced young man coming sideways, who seemed about to grapple me. At my resolute halt, he fell back a pace, ducked, and threw up a defensive arm, and then I perceived the course was clear, and ahead of me, young Verrall and Nettie—he was holding her arm to help her—running away. I fired a fourth ineffectual shot, and then, in an access of fury at my misses, started out to run them down and shoot them barrel to backbone. Some one pursued me, perhaps several persons—I do not know. We left them all behind: We ran. For a space I was altogether intent upon the swift monotony of flight and pursuit. The sands were changed to a whirl of green moonshine, the air was thunder. A luminous green haze rolled about us. What did such things matter? We ran. Did I gain or lose? That was the question. They ran through a gap in a broken fence that sprang up abruptly out of nothingness, and turned to the right. I noted we were in a road. But this green mist! One seemed to plow through it. They were fading into it, and at that thought I made a spurt that won a dozen feet or more. She staggered. He gripped her arm, and dragged her forward. ‘They doubled to the left. We were off the road again and on turf—it felt like turf. I tripped and fell at a ditch that was somehow full of smoke, and was up again, but now they were phantoms half gone into the livid swirls about me.

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WITHIN THE SHINING CLOUDS OF THE METEOR, A STREAMING MOVEMENT HAD BEGUN

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QNNOUS AHL OL ONOIGVAH T1aa GNV ‘AYNLNAA V LV LOHS ALVWILIONAd AN GAIA I

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In the Days Still I ran. On, on! I groaned with the violence of my effort. I staggered again and swore. I felt the concussions of great guns tear past me through the murk. They were gone! Everything was going, but I kept. on running. Once more I stumbled. There was something about my feet that impeded me, tall grass or heather, but I could not see what it was, only this smoke that eddied about my of the Comet 45 knees. There was a noise and spinning in my brain, a vain resistance to a dark, green curtain that was falling, falling, falling, fold upon fold. Everything grew darker and darker. I made one last frantic effort, raised my revolver, fired my penultimate shot at a venture, and fell headlong to the ground. And behold! the green curtain was a black one, and the earth and I and all things ceased to be. BOOK THE SECOND—THE GREEN VAPORS CHAPTER THE FIRST—-THE CHANGE I SEEMED to awaken out of a refreshing sleep. I did not awaken with a start, but opened my eyes, ig catia abel . rie and lay very comfortably, f looking at a line of ex- 3 traordinarily scarlet poppies 2a that glowed against a glow- Cd ing sky. It was the sky of Be a magnificent sunrise, and an archipelago of gold-beached, purple islands floated in a sea of golden green. The poppies too, swan-necked buds, blaz- ing corollas, translucent, stout seed vessels, stoutly upheld, had a luminous quality, seemed wrought only from some. more solid kind of light. I stared unwonderingly at these things for a time, and then there rose upon my consciousness, intermingling with these, the bristling golden-green heads of grow- ing barley. A remote faint question, where I might be, drifted and vanished again in my mind. Everything was very still. Everything was as still as death. I felt very light, full of the sense of phys- icai well-being. I perceived I was lying on my side in a little trampled space in a weedy, flowering barley field, that was, in some inexplicable way, saturated with light and beauty. I sat up, and remained for a long time filled with the delight and charm of the delicate little convolvulus that twined among the barley stems, the pimpernel that laced the ground below. Then that question returned. What was this place? How had I come to be sleeping here? I could not remember. It perplexed me that, somehow, my body felt strange. It was unfamiliar—I could not tell how—and the barley, and the beautiful weeds, and the slowly de- veloping glory of the dawn behind; all those things partook of the same unfamiliarity. I felt as though I was a thing in some very luminous, painted window, as though this dawn broke through me. I felt I was part of some exquisite picture painted in light and joy. A faint breeze bent and rustled the barley heads, and jogged my mind forward. Who was I? That was a good way of beginning. I held up my left hand and arm before me, a grubby hand, a frayed cuff, but with a quality of painted unreality, transfigured, as a beggar might have been by Botticelli. I looked for a time steadfastly at a beauti- ful pearl sleeve link. I remembered Willie Leadford, who had owned that arm and hand, as though he had been some one else. Of course! My history—its rough out- line, rather than the immediate past— began to shape itself in my memory, very small, very bright and inaccessible, like a thing watched through a microscope. Clayton and Swathinglea returned to mind; the slums and darkness, Diireresque, mi- nute, and in their rich, dark colors pleasing, and through them I went toward my destiny. TI sat, hands on knees, recalling that queer, passionate career that had ended with my futile shot into the growing

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46 Cosmopolitan Magazine darkness of the End. The thought of that shot awoke my emotions again. There was something in it now, some- thing absurd, that made me smile pityingly. Poor little, angry, miserable czeature! Poor little, angry, miserable world! I sighed for pity, not only pity for myself, but for all the hot hearts, the tormented brains, the straining, striving things of hope and pain that had found their peace at last beneath the pouring mist and suffocation of the comet. Because cer- tainly that world was over and done. They were all so weak and unhappy, and I was now so strong and so serene. For I felt sure I was dead; no one living could have this perfect assurance of good, this strong and confident peace. I had made an end of the fever called living. I was dead, and it was all right, and these—— I felt an inconsistency. These, then, must be the barley fields of God—the still and silent barley fields of God, full of unfading poppy flowers whose seeds bear peace. II It was queer to find barley fields in eaven o doub ere were man h , but no doubt there were many surprises in store for me. ow still everything was! Peace! The H till everything | P ! Th peace that passeth understanding. After all it had come tome! But, indeed, every-* thing was very still! Surely I was alone in the world! No birds sang. Yes, and all the distant sounds of life had ceased, the lowing of cattle, the barking of dogs. Something that was like fear beatified, came into my heart. It was all right, I knew; but to be alone! Istood up and met the hot summons of the rising sun, hurrying toward me, as it were, with glad tidings, over the spikes of the barley. Blinded, I made a step. My foot struck something hard, and I looked down to dis- cover my revolver, a blue-black thing, like a dead snake at mv feet. For a moment that puzzled me. Then I clean forgot about it. The won- der of the quiet took possession of my soul. Dawn, and no birds singing! How beautiful was the world! How beautiful, but how still! I walked slowly through the barley toward a line of elder bushes, wayfaring tree and bramble that made the hedge of the field. I noted as I passed along a shrew mouse dead, as it seemed to me, among the haulms; then a still toad. I was surprised that this did not leap aside from my footfalls, and I stooped and picked it up. Its body was limp like life, but it made no struggle; the brightness of its eye was veiled; it did not move in my hand. * It seems to me now that I stood hold- ing that lifeless little creature for some time. Then very softly I stooped down and replaced it. I was trembling—trem- bling with a nameless emotion. I looked with quickened eyes closely among the barley stems, and behold, new everywhere I saw beetles, flies, and little creatures that did not move, lying as they fell when the vapors overcame them; they seemed no more than painted things. Some were novel creatures to me. I was very un- familiar with natural things. ‘My God!” I cried; ‘‘but is it only I?” And then, at my next movement, some- thing squealed sharply. I turned about, but I could not see it, only I saw a little stir in a rut and heard the diminishing rustle of the unseen creature’s flight. And at that, I turned to my toad again, and its eye moved and it stirred. And presently, with infirm and hesitating gestures, it stretched its limbs and began to crawl away from me. But wonder, that gentle sister of fear, had me now. I saw,a little way ahead, a brown and crimson butterfly perched upon a cornflower. I thought at first it was the breeze that stirred it, and then I saw its wings were quivering. And even as I watched it, it started into life, and spread itself, and fluttered into the air. I watched it fly, a turn this way, a turn that, until suddenly it seemed to vanish. And now, life was returning to this thing and that on every side of me, with slow stretchings and bendings, with twitterings, with a little start and stir. I came slowly, stepping very carefully because of these drugged, feebly awaken- ing things, through the barley to the hedge. It was a very glorious hedge, so that it held my eyes. It flowed along and interlaced like splendid music. It was rich with lupin, honeysuckle, campions, and ragged robin; bedstraw, hops, and wild clematis twined and hung among its branches, and all along its ditch border the starry stich- wort lifted its childish faces, and chorused eR ei HE cen Iara _ “ =: ail en sa win ne

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‘<= La, toe cd I STOOD UP AND MET THE HOT SUMMONS OF THE RISING SUN, HURRYING TOWARD ME, AS IT WERE, WITH GLAD TIDINGS, OVER THE SPIKES OF BARLEY

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48 Cosmopolitan Magazine in lines and masses. Never had I seen such a symphony of note-like flowers and tendrils and leaves. And suddenly in its depths, I neard a chirrup and the whirr of startled wings. Nothing was dead, but everything had changed to beauty! And I stood for a time with clean and happy eyes looking at the intricate delicacy before me and mar- veling how richly God has made his worlds. It might be the old world indeed, but something new lay upon all things, a glow- ing certitude of health and happiness. It might be the old world, but the dust and fury of the old life was certainly done. At least I had no doubt of that. I recalled the last phases of my former life, that darkling climax of pursuit and anger, the universal darkness, and the whirling green vapors of extinction. The comet had struck the earth and made an end to all things. Of that too I was as- sured. But afterwards ? And now? The imaginations of my boyhood came back as speculative possibilities. In those days I had believed firmly in the necessary advent of a last day, a great coming out of the sky, trumpetings and fear, the Resurrec- tion, and the Judgment. My roving fancy now suggested to me that this Judgment must have come and passed, that it had passed and in some manner missed me. I was left alone here, in a swept and gar- nished world to begin again perhaps. I laughed loudly and long. And _be- hold! even as I laughed, the keen point of things accomplished stabbed my mirth, and I was weeping, weeping aloud, con- vulsed with weeping, and the tears were pouring down my face. (To be continued.) The First Furrow BY JAMES J. MONTAGUE Illustrated by John Ldwin Jackson Don’r you ever feel a yearnin’, ‘long about this time o’ year, For a robin’s song to tell you that the summer time is near? Don’t you ever sort o’ hanker for the blackbird’s whistlin’ call, Echoin’ through the hillside orchard, where the blossoms used to fall? Don’t you wish that you were out there, breathin’ in the April air, Full o’ glad an’ careless boyhood, an’ with strength an’ health to spare ? Don’t it Aurt you to remember, when the springtime comes around, How the first, long, rollin’ furrow used to wake the sleepy ground? How’d you like to take the children, born to dirty city streets, Out to where the brook goes pulsin’ when the heart o’ nature beats? How’d you like to watch:’em wonder at the boomin’ of the bees, Or to see ’em dodge the petals that are snowin’ from the trees? How’d you like to see their faces catch the color o’ the rose, As they raced across the meadow where the earliest crocus grows ? Wouldn't it be joy to watch ’em follow on behind the plow, As it cut the first brown furrow, like it’s doin’ out there now? FN cai ee rma

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- 7 TIN latest The First Furrow

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An Unavailing Subterfuge BY ELLIOTT FLOWER » Lllustrated by William R. Leigh SG HE situation was awkward, Nj and there was little time for consideration. Above all things, it was deemed neces- sary to avoid a scandal, and yet the elopement must be prevented. As the young couple had already left in a carriage, this presented dif- ficulties. Still, a letter that the girl had overlooked in her haste told enough of their plans to make it easily pos- sible to intercept them at the station. ‘““But there must be no scene,” Mrs. Pasker insisted. ‘It would be terrible to have Madeline the center of a newspaper sensation. A young girl never wholly re- covers from the disgrace of such publicity. _If we could only get him locked up for a little while, we could get her away to Europe.” So, on the impulse of the moment, Cor- nelius Pasker swore to a warrant charging Horace Bennett with larceny, and then in- tercepted the couple at the station. It was all very cleverly managed. Ben- nett was caught while checking the bag- gage, and was hustled away without an opportunity to say a word to his prospective bride. Meanwhile, the girl was rounded up in the waiting-room and led in tears to a carriage that whisked her back home, this detail of the proceedings being skillfully managed by Mrs. Pasker. It had been the intention of the young couple to be married in a neighboring town, so this prompt and extraordinary procedure seemed to be wholly effective. There was, however, much to worry Pasker, when he stopped to consider the new situation. They had checkmated the young people without scandal, but what assurance had they that Bennett would not tell the whole story? That would be a natural thing for him to do, but, on the other hand, his chivalrous regard for the girl might make him as anxious as they were to avoid dragging her name into a police-court case—if he understood. Pasker gave him credit for being this much of a gentleman, even if not an eligible suitor. But he might not grasp this feature of the situation, and his anxiety to protect himself might be overwhelming. ‘“We don’t want to be hard on you,” Pasker said significantly, by way of inti- mating that this was merely a move in the game and not to be regarded as a case in itself. Bennett did not deign to reply, and it was impossible to tell whether he understood the idea sought to be conveyed. He had been told that the charge was larceny, but he had learned none of the details. At the police station, however, he sought further information. “Larceny of what ?”’ he demanded, when the charge was repeated to him there. ‘‘ diamond ring,” was the reply. For a moment the youth seemed puzzled ; then his face broke into a smile, and finally he laughed. “That’s good,” he commented; but whether he meant that it was a good joke or a clever move did not appear. Still, the smile and the comment somewhat reassured Pasker, and there was nothing especially significant in Bennett’s demand that the case be heard at once. ““T—I think to-morrow will be time enough,” suggested Pasker. “No; now,” insisted Bennett. ‘‘I’d rather be in jail than a dirty old police sta- tion. I'll get bail, if I have to stay here.” This threat was too much for Pasker, who certainly did not want the young man at liberty just yet, and, as the police court was in session, it was agreed that the case should be heard as soon as Mrs. Pasker’s presence could be secured. But Pasker was becoming more and more uncomfort- able. He did not want to press the case at this time; in fact, he was beginning to think he did not want to press it at a’!l. If he

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THE GIRL WAS ROUNDED UP IN THE WAITING-ROOM could only keep the young fellow locked up and silent for a few days, he would be quite content to drop the proceedings. It seemed to be unfair to take advantage of his con- sideration for the girlk But Mrs. Pasker proved to be more unrelenting, and her in- fluence with Pasker was strong. “He’s too impatient,” complained Pasker. “Of course,” his wife conceded. ‘So is she. That’s why we’ve had to do this.” “T thought I had the case well in hand,” persisted Pasker, ‘‘but he’s rushing it too fast for proper control. He’s forcing the issue.” “Then he must take the consequences,” declared Mrs. Pasker. “Think of Made- line! She must be our first consideration. It is better that he should be locked up for a little while than that she should be made unhappy for life. Besides, it’s his own fault.” From a parental point of view, this reasoning was good, but there were other troublesome features. s1

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wn to “It’s going to be pretty hard to make the larceny charge stick,’ said Pasker. ‘““Nonsense!”’. returned Mrs. Pasker. “He took Madeline, didn’t he?” Pasker gasped. ‘‘ Larceny of a girl!” he exclaimed. ‘‘ But that’s preposterous.” ‘“‘ And she was wearing the diamond ring, so of course he took that,” continued Mrs. Pasker, complacently. “He stole every- thing she had on when he took her.” “Heavens!” ejaculated Pasker. “It’s true, isn’t it?” demanded Mrs. Pasker. ‘*Oh, of course,” answered Pasker feebly. “‘He—he certainly didn’t get her sepa- rately.” Now, Pasker had taken this larceny of the ring on faith, Mrs. Pasker having sup- plied the specific charge when he had sug- gested getting a warrant. He had no idea that the ring actually had been stolen, but he counted upon its being found in Ben- nett’s possession, and that would serve well enough as an excuse to get the young man out of the way temporarily. By the time the affair was straightened out, the girl would be safely out of reach. Now, how- ever, he suddenly discovered that he did not have even this little basis for his charge, and there was no time to revise his plan. He was dazed, and, before he had recov- ered his wits, they were summoned to the police court. The only consoling thought that came to him, as he mechanically fol- lowed his wife, was that it was only a police court anyhow, and perhaps they would not go into the matter very deeply on a prelimi- nary hearing. Bennett was already there, in charge of a policeman, and Bennett had reached an impulsive decision: he would sacrifice him- self for his sweetheart. Rather than make her the center of a police-court sensation, he would go to jail. The charge had seemed so absurd as to be amusing at first, but he had grasped the seriousness of his predica- ment later: he could save himself only at her expense, which would be contemptible. She could not love a man who would do that. Perhaps Pasker had figured on some such weakness, to kill her love for him. Well, he would fool Pasker. Perhaps, if the case was not pressed, he might get off with a fine. So, when he was called upon to plead, his plea was “guilty.” Mr. and Mrs. Pasker sighed their relief. They had gained their point, and there Cosmopolitan Magazine would be no scandal. With this feeling of relief, however, there came to Pasker a feel- ing of admiration for the young man, and of regret that it was necessary to do this thing. Still, he reasoned, one must protect one’s daughter from her own foolishness, and the young man had only himself to blame for his predicament. ‘May we go now?” he asked anxiously. ‘“‘Hardly,” returned the magistrate. ‘TI wish to know something of the details before deciding what action to take.” ““We are not vindictive,’? Pasker has- tened to explain. ‘‘A short term in jail will be entirely satisfactory to us.” ‘But it may not be satisfactory to the state,” said the magistrate. ‘‘This may be a grand-jury case.” “Oh, but we don’t want a grand-jury case!’’ expostulated Pasker. “It makes no difference what you want,” asserted the magistrate severely. ‘‘ People like you, who want to escape the annoy- ance of trials, are largely responsible for crime in this city. You want the laws en- forced, but you don’t want their enforce- ment to inconvenience you; you don’t want the trouble of prosecuting, except when it’s necessary for the recovery of property. I venture to say you wouldn’t be here now, if you could get your property without ap- pearing. ‘“We’ve already got it,” said Pasker; whereupon his wife joggled his elbow and frowned at him. “Oh, that’s it!” exclaimed the magis- trate disgustedly. ‘‘You’ve lost nothing, and so you are willing to let the offender go! Well, sir, it’s time for you to understand that the law is for the protection of the whole community and not for the personal use of an individual. The state has this case now, and the state has a deeper interest in it than to see that you lose nothing. The state will resent any attempt at juggling with the law for any purpose whatsoever.”’ Pasker was deeply troubled. He had always looked upon a police court with complacent contempt, but court and case were certainly running away with him. He could see where he might get into trouble, if the prisoner chose to speak out, and the prisoner’s face showed a dawning hope. There was, however, but one thing to do. “T must know all the circumstances,” added the magistrate. ‘‘Now, exactly what did this man steal ?”

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, ' ‘‘ A—a diamond ring,” said Pasker. His wife joggled his elbow again. It had suddenly flashed upon her that this par- ticular ring had been given by Bennett to Madeline as an engagement ring, and was, in fact, the thing that had stirred up all the trouble. It was the very last item that ought to figure in this case. “No, no,” she interposed; ‘‘not the ring.” Then to the magistrate: ‘‘ Never mind the ring, Judge. He took a gold watch and chain.” ‘* And two other rings,” added the rattled Pasker, who felt that it would be a mistake to abandon the ring idea entirely. The magistrate frowned. “Rather a complicated case,” he com- mented. ‘‘You don’t seem to be able to agree on what was stolen. Was there any- thing else?” The two hesitated, but finally, uncom- fortable under the magistrate’s gaze, Pasker spoke. “A gold locket, with a miniature photo- graph inside Pe “No, not the photograph,” interrupted Mrs. Pasker, suddenly remembering that it was a photograph of Bennett. ‘He took it with the locket, didn’t he?” demanded Pasker. ‘“‘T presume so, but “Oh, never mind the photograph,” the magistrate broke. in. ‘“That’s an incon- siderable item. Did he confine himself to jewelry or was he more promiscuous in his attentions ?” “‘Oh, he wasn’t promiscuous in his atten- tions at all,” answered Mrs. Pasker. ‘‘ We never had any fault to find that way.” “Fault to find!” repeated the perplexed magistrate. “I don’t think you under- stand my question. Did he take anything besides the jewelry mentioned ?” Again the two hesitated. It seemed to them that this was enough, and there was no telling into what embarrassments a fur- ther investigation might lead them. “Nothing of any importance,” Mrs. Pasker finally answered. “Never mind the importance,” said the magistrate severely. “I'll be judge of that.” “He took a hat,’ admitted Mrs. Pasker resignedly. “A thirty-dollar hat,” sighed Pasker, as he thought of the bill. “A what!” exclaimed the magistrate. ” An Unavailing Subterfuge 53 “‘A—a thirty-dollar hat,” explained the startled Pasker. ‘“‘A lady’s hat, you know.” “Oh, that’s an item of no importance!” remarked the magistrate sarcastically. “TI didn’t say so, Judge,” pleaded Pasker. “Tt was Mrs. Pasker, and she didn’t have to pay the bill.” “It is evident that you are trying to con- ceal something from the court,” said the magistrate sternly. ‘I must insist upon having the whole naked truth. Now, state in detail exactly what was taken, and how— no equivocations, no subterfuges, no omis- sions.” ““I—I can’t, Judge,” faltered Pasker. ““Haven’t completed an inventory of the items, I suppose.” “Yes, that’s it.” Pasker fairly jumped at this opening. “Well, do the best you can,” insisted the magistrate. “There was a gown, and—and a jacket, and shoes.” ‘“‘A strange assortment of plunder,” said the magistrate, as Pasker paused. ‘The man who takes jewelry usually doesn’t bother with old clothes.” Then to the prisoner, ‘‘ What in the world did you want with a lady’s hat and a gown ?” “Nothing at all, Judge,” answered Ben- nett. ‘I didn’t care about them one way or another.” “ But you took them ?” “Well, they went along with me.” “Oh, they went along with you!” snorted the magistrate. ‘‘ Magnetism, I suppose! No fault of yours at all!””: “T would hardly say that,” returned Ben- nett. ‘‘Iam to blame, of course.” “It’s very considerate of you not to put the blame on the clothes,” was the magis- trate’s sarcastic retort. ‘““No, they were not to blame,” said the young man calmly. ‘Personally, I would as soon have left them behind.” “Why didn’t you?” “Well, they were rather necessary.” “T should think so!” ejaculated Mrs. Pasker. “So they were taken from the house?” persisted the magistrate. “Yes, sir.” ‘In your arms?” ““No, indeed!” “The idea!” exclaimed Mrs. Pasker. “He had a carriage,” explained Pasker. “‘An aristocratic thief!’ commented the

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! i i 54 Cosmopolitan Magazine magistrate. ‘And a quibbler! He didn’t take them away, but they went with him in a carriage.” He turned back to Pasker. “I think this charge had better be changed from farceny to burglary, and I’ll hold him to the grand jury.” ‘Oh, no, your honor!” cried Pasker, alarmed at the prospect of a grand-jury in- vestigation. ‘‘It wasn’t burglary; he didn’t break into the house.” ““How did he get in?” ““The—the maid let him in.” “Collusion!” said the magistrate. ‘ Why didn’t you have the maid arrested, too?” *“‘She’s not to blame,” said the rattled Pasker. “Tf he entered under false pretenses —— “Oh, no!” interrupted Mrs. Pasker, now alsomuch worried. “He was quite honest.” “Honest!” repeated the amazed magis- trate. “Well, he told her what he wanted.” “Now, see here!” exclaimed the indig- nant magistrate; ‘I have had enough of this concealment, and I intend to get at the basis of this affair right hereand now. The underlying truth must be uncovered.” “Impossible!” was Mrs. Pasker’s thought- less exclamation, while Pasker fidgeted nervously, “There is a mystery of some sort back of this,” the magistrate went on. “Oh, no; not a mystery,” interposed Pasker, anxiously. “So far,” the magistrate persisted, “‘the prisoner would seem to have been stealing for a wife or a sweetheart.” This seemed to impress him as a happy thought, and he turned to Bennett. “Are you married?” he asked. ‘No, sir,” was the reply. “Got a sweetheart ?” “'Y—yes, sir.” “Ah! I begin to understand,” remarked the magistrate, secretly gratified by this evidence of his own acumen. “She has luxurious tastes, I presume.” “T—I think not, sir. She likes nice things Pe “Of course,” interrupted the magistrate, complacently. ‘And these were for her ?”’ ‘*Yes, sir.” It occurred to Bennett that the magistrate might look upon this as an extenuating circumstance. And it was true. “Trying to supply her with a trousseau, were you?” “Yes, sir.” > The magistrate smiled good-humoredly. It was pleasing to him to find that he was so perspicacious. ‘*T trust you didn’t overlook anything,” he said. ‘Girls are great on ribbons. Did you have any in your plunder ?” “T believe so.” ‘ “‘Believeso! Don’t youknow?” ‘Well, there were hair-ribbons.”’ “You are certainly a thoughtful lover,” laughed the magistrate. ‘“‘How about hosiery ?” ‘**I—I don’t know.” “Don’t know! Don’t you know \-nat you took ?” ““Not—not everything.” Bennett was flushed and uncomfortable, Pasker could not hide his nervousness and Mrs. Pasker was trying to think of some way to divert the examination to other channels. “ Didn’t stop to make an inventory,” sug- gested the magistrate. “No, sir.” “There was hosiery—silk hosiery,” de- clared Mrs. Pasker, feeling that somehow any doubt in this matter would be a reflec- tion upon her. ‘Of course,”’ added Pasker, ‘‘and every- thing else that———” Mrs. Pasker nudged him so hard that he said “Ouch!” and then stopped short. “Well,” said the magistrate, thoughtfully, ‘“now that I understand the case, it isn’t necessary to go so deeply into the matter of individual items. I presume the total value of what was taken would amount to several hundred dollars.” ‘‘A million!” asserted Mrs. Pasker, who naturally put a mother’s valuation upon her daughter. “What!” cried the magistrate. “Your honor,” Pasker hastily explained, ‘she is thinking of the value to us.” ‘Ah, yes,” remarked the magistrate; ‘‘an heirloom among the things taken.” “Well—er—a family treasure, your honor.” ‘Been in the family long ?” ‘A little over seventeen years.” ‘Seventeen years!” exclaimed the mag- istrate, disgustedly. ‘“That’s not long. Wait until it gets to be a thousand years old.” Then, as another thought occurred to him, “But perhaps it has antiquity, and you got it from some “Never has been out of our family,” Pasker quickly-interrupted. ic

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\ st mS ‘“)"LL MARRY HIM, NO MATTER HOW LONG I HAVE TO WAIT”

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56 Cosmopolitan Magazine “Well, you have a queer idea of what makes value in such matters,” said the mag- istrate, leaning back in his chair wearily. “But that has nothing to do with the case. I understand it now, and I am rather sorry for the young man. The fact that love led him to steal is no extenuation of the crime, but I do think a responsibility rests upon the girl that should be brought home to her. The modern woman is too covetous. She wants beautiful and costly things, and she makes man understand that he must supply them. The girl may not have conspired witle the prisoner to get these things—she may not have known how he was going to get them—but her unreasoning covetous- ness doubtless lies at the back of it all. I would like to have her here, to see mS “Oh, no, your honor!” “Impossible!” Pasker and Mrs. Pasker both spoke at once, and, before the magistrate could re- cover from his astonishment, a girl entered and rushed excitedly to the side of the pris- oner. “Madeline!” cried Pasker. “How did you get out ?” demanded Mrs. Pasker. “Through the window,” answered the girl, defiantly. “What are you trying to do to Horace?”?’ Then to the magistrate, ‘I am the guilty one, Judge.” “Guilty of what?” asked the magis- trate. “Tdon’t know. Anything. “Your honor,” broke in Pasker, seeing that further concealment was useless, ‘‘he stole the girl who was wearing the articles we enumerated.” “He did nothing of the sort,’’ protested the girl. ‘I stole him.” The situation, as now developed, ap- pealed to the magistrate’s sense of humor. He leaned over his desk and spoke to the prisoner. ” ‘Did you try to avoid being stolen?” he asked, solicitously. “No, your honor.” “Because, if you had, I would certainly fine you the limit,”’ added the magistrate. “Oh, isn’t he grand!” exclaimed the girl, detecting the note of sympathy and commendation in the magistrate’s voice, and instinctively turning to him for support. “ll marry him, no matter how long I have to wait. They may shut me up or send me to Europe or put me in a convent, but I’ll be of age pretty soon, and then I’ll marry him anyhow.” “‘T think she will,” said the magistrate, musingly. “‘T think so, too,’’ conceded Pasker. “And he seems to be a manly young fellow,” added the magistrate. ‘‘He has proved his chivalrous nature here, while you,” turning suddenly to Pasker and Mrs. Pasker, “‘have been trifling with the court. That’s a serious matter.” Mrs. Pasker was visibly agitated, and Pasker decided that he was in for deep trouble. ‘“‘ You ought to be severely punished,” the magistrate went on. “You deserve to lose this ‘heirloom.’ If it were within my jurisdiction, I would be strongly tempted to award a girl, named Madeline, to the defendant as damages. As I can’t do that, I must af But Pasker didn’t care to hear any alter- native. He was beginning to take the mag- istrate’s view of the young man’s conduct, and—well, their situation was desperate. Mrs. Pasker realized that, too. “Your honor,” Pasker humbly inter- rupted, “‘if it will satisfy the court, we shall be glad to consider the award so made.” The magistrate looked at Mrs. Pasker. “Oh,” she said resignedly, “the scandal that will follow this makes it almost neces- sary.” The magistrate smiled benignly and ad- journed the court.

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ANGLO-SAXON-CELTIC TYPE, WITH SAXON STRAIN DOMINANT Racial Traits in American Beauty BY BROUGHTON A2SGHE laurels of loveliness be- M( ZN) long indisputably to the ANT American woman even more a to-day than haif a century ago, and I hope to show that there is every reason to be- Zee) lieve that the world of the next century, perhaps even the second one, shall marvel still at a race of incompara- ble beauty reared on our soil. If the reverse were to be expected the problem would be grave indeed, because, inasmuch as the phenomenon results from a combination of our life and climate with the so BRANDENBURG mingling of the old racial strains of Europe, the consequences are inevitable. Migrations of whole families of Irish, Scotch and Devonshire stock occurred late in the eighteenth century to Newfoundland, the Gaspé peninsula, the coast of Maine, the maritime provinces of Canada in general and to western Pennsylvania. There were many other places in the United States to which groups came but they were amal- gamated with other races and cannot be so readily traced. Their prevailing type of generous mouth, teeth not too closely set, hair with a bit of curl in it and their exquisite color, is one very familiar indeed. What s

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CELTIC-ANGLO-IBERIC, WITH CELTIC STRAIN DOMINANT has been the effect of climatic change? Those in Newfoundland, the Gaspé penin- sula and Nova Scotia, though they have kept their blood so pure that Gaelic is still common among them as ordinary speech, are shorter in stature, smaller of mouth, higher of cheek bone, and the soft color has become a flaming red that is almost un- changing. I have seen little tots in the in- terior of the peninsula whose faces seemed to be painted with vermilion, the color was so bright. In Maine their features have shrunken, the general eye is smaller and the blue eye has become gray. In Pennsylvania, however, they have grown taller, their bony framework is more symmetrica!, their teeth a have no outward slant, meeting squarely. A large percentage of the women are exceed- ingly beautiful, their skins being creamy- white with a delicate tinting of color such as is usually seen with red hair, though it is only in the last two generations that that darker tint called auburn has appeared. The reason is that the climate is milder, and the chemical constituency of the food they eat, the water they drink and the air they breathe, is different. Lay the picture of any Virginia beauty of pure Anglo-Saxon extraction beside the miniature of her great-grandmother, who was born in Kent or Surrey, and the modifi- cation of al! that was good in the grand-

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SAXON-IBERIC TYPE mother’s face into the perfect beauty of the young Virginian’s features, will be convinc- ing. How tall a race has grown in the mountains of Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Tennessee, Kentucky and the Carolinas! The exception there is the man under six feet. What strapping men are the third generation Iowans and Kansans! It is a well-known fact, considered to be very amusing in California, that a shriveled father and mother from some rocky farm in a bleak spot of New England can migrate to California and raise a family of the most beautiful children. One can easily recall a great number of California beauties whose gifts have been so rich as to bring them before the public for beauty alone. The counterpart of this quality in the other sex is the athletic ability which young Cali- fornians have shown. It isa rare year when that state does not produce some ‘*‘ wonder.” A well-known lecturer on biology made a study of these phenomena and decided that the same influences of sun, air, wind and moisture that made a plant which is ordi- narily small and not over fruitful grow tall, bloom and bear luxuriantly, would be ex- pected to act in like fashion on human organisms. Despite the insistency of the comic para- graphers, there are few persons who believe that the Chicago women have larger feet 59

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60 than some other people. The truth is they have. As a matter of amusement a quiz- zical man, who is a Massachusetts manu- facturer of a widely known and standard brand of shoes for women, had his sales de- partment note the sizes of shoes shipped in one year to the various wholesale centers, and to his astonishment the average of Chicago was a size larger than the average TEUTONIC TYPE, WITH RECURRENT IBERIC STRAIN of the remainder of the country. His ob- servations were printed with the figures in a trades-paper, and the New York, Boston and Philadelphia paragraphers were beginning to chuckle in glee, when the trades-paper of the ready-made-clothing makers published figures to show that ready-made skirts of the middle and best grades shipped to Chicago were from two to two and one-half inches longer on the average, and that jackets and Cosmopolitan .Magazine waists of like quality ran in sizes greater by from one to two inches. This is proof conclusive that if the women of Chicago and the northern central states have larger feet at least they are much larger and stronger women than the Easterners and Southerners. Inspiration is nearly imperative in tracing out the complex influences of mingled strains in any one type that is really American, fcr the reason that through the ma jority of the genealogies runs what I have chosen to call the compos.te American type. It is not the real American type; it is to be that when fully devel- oped. For instance, an ex- tremely beautiful Indiana girl, who came to notice in some re- cent studies of the racial effect of immigration on the great mass of people already in the United States, was found to have a German father who was a Schwabischer and very dark and compactly built. Racially he would be called Teutonic- Iberic. Her mother, however, was of the composite type I have named. Her maternal grandfather was a Scotch sailor, her maternal grandmother a French seamstress, her paternal grandfather was the son of a Dutch burgher and a Spanish refugee on Staten Island, and her paternal grandmother the daughter of a Polish revolu- tionary soldier. In the Scotch, we have the Celtic; in the French, the Iberic; in the Dutch, the Teutonic; in this in- stance, in the Spanish, the Iberic-Semitic; and in the Po- lish, the Slavic, resulting in equally balanced Celtic, Iberic, Teutonic and Slavic strains, with a trace of Semitic on her mother’s side, while her father augmented the Teutonic and the Iberic. More than half of our population in the United States is just as mixed racially and that great mass forms what I mean by the composite American. When a person of such a composite type, already modified by climate and life in America, marries a newcomer or the child of newcomers of a pure racial type, then we

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find the most extraordinary beauty as a frequent result. There seems to be an elimina- tion of anything that has become objectionable by inbreeding in the unmixed blood, and an in- tensifying of the very best quali- ties. That is the secret of our American beauties. The marked varieties which are such a delight to our foreign visitors, and to foreign society when our girls go abroad, are the result of some strain pre- dominating or perhaps recurring strongly in one or two facial features. That is very markedly set forth in the Anglo-Saxon Celtic type and the Teutonic type with recurrent Iberic strain. In the first the Scotch blood is predominant and signifies itself in the gentle, earnest eyes, the delicate, idealistic mouth, the tilted nose and the hair. In the ANGLO-SAXON, WITH RECURKENT Racial Traits in American Beauty ANGLE STRAIN ANGLO-SAXON-CELTIC, ‘THE CELTIC DOMINATING other it comes out in the long, thin and delicate Iberic ear and the color of the hair, while never Teuton had such a mouth. It is a not uncommon thing in America for people who have a strain of high lineage to ignore their less noble ancestry. Many families which are predominantly Irish and Welsh prefer to trace back their origin to some Eng- lish ancestor. From my studies of racial developments in this country I am convinced anyone should be proud to acknowledge Irish and Slavic blood. Many Jews call themselves Germans and many Germans by extrac- tion wish to be thought English by blood. A little story which illus- trates some of these fallacies and pretensions of ancestry is

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62 COMPOSITE AMERICAN, WITH DOMINANT ANGLO- SAXON STRAIN that of the very respect- able American gentle- man who published a book a few years ago in which he listed all of the families in the United States which, “by the true test” of ancestry, had any claim whatsoever to social recognition. The point is, this gentleman an- nounced that he consid- ered himself fully fitted by birth to judge un- prejudicedly who was who and who was not, as he was a direct de- scendant of James II of England. Suppose a resort is PURE KANAKA—A Cosmopolitan Magazine made to a little mathematics. As humanity lives and dies twelve generations have come since the day of James II. Allowing the small number of four children to each generation as increase (con- sidering the size of families in other days this is small), there must be 67,108,864 persons alive who have just as much of James’s blood in their veins as the man who presumed to be mentor to American society. And again, since there were about two hun- dred Aryan kings, royal princes, etc., contemporary with James II, whose blood was as purely royal, then there must be thirteen billion strains of royal blood in the white race to-day—which means that the most ordinary person must NEW TYPE OF AMERICAN BEAUTY

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have at least twenty, and the unfortunate individual who has only one strain, and that James II, is a common person indeed. Yet, I am the last to deny that “blood will tell.’ Going over the thousands of pictures from which the few that illustrate this article were selected, first, because each was a beauty, each a different type and all displaying some interesting trait, the proof that what is in the blood will appear was abundant. In the Scandinavian-Teutonic type one could scarcely believe, to look at the genealogy, that a Semitic strain would show; but it is there, delicately hinted at in the upper lip and the cartilage between the nostrils. Really, aside from the splendid eves, it gives the most of the pleasing char- acter to the face. In the composite Ameri can type, with the predominant Anglo- Saxon strain, the deathless character of race is attested. From Chicago, born of many generations of Americans and of such typ ically American features as never to be mis taken for anything other than an American girl, her face need only be compared with those of the Anglo-Saxon type with recurrent Angle strain and previously mentioned Anglo-Saxon-Celtic, to see the convincing similarity. In connection with this type it seems interesting to remark that of the many judges, dilettanti and connoisseurs who have examined the larger collection, nearly all picked her out for some especial notice and often confessed that her face, though not analyzing as satisfactorily as some of the others, was far more attractive. Never was she mistaken for a type not thoroughly composite American. In the Celtic-Teutonic type the softening, blending and reénforcing effect of the addi- tion of the composite American blood is well portrayed. No one would expect to find such perfection of head, neck and shoul der lines in a Celt nor would one believe such mouth and eyes could be Teuton. It is the , effect of one on the , iy other and then of the composite American blood putting all in yg : proportion. American §& 3 “ life and climate will ef- : fect this reproportion ing alone sometimes. Referring again to the Anglo-Saxon- Celtic type with the notable Celtic indica- Racial Traits in American Beauty 63 tions, a bit is learned from a comparison of the lovely Anglo-Saxon-Celtic type with the predominant Saxon strain. Though unknown to each other, with no family con- nections whatever and merely the same racial origin and the same American in- CELTIC-TEUTONIC AND COMPOSITE AMERICAN

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64 Cosmopolitan Magazine fluences, the two girls, on the analysis of their features, would be taken for sisters. Many persons have been morally certain they were twins and some who have been hasty have even thought they were the same girl. The only real noticeable difference is in the quality of the hair and the slight vari- ation inthe jaw. They are two ideal faces. American life has con- tributed vast- ly to the molding and blending of widely diver- gent strains in the Saxon- Iberic type where the heavy Iberic jaw has been rounded, the Saxon nose relaxed and the eye orbits enlarged and rendered symmetrical with (ble modified jaw, thus produc- ing a face not only beauti- ful but sweet, interesting, mobile and of a physical structure to resist time. What a Celtic domi- nancy can do with Anglo- Iberic blood is shown in the Celtic-Anglo-Iberic type. It has proved generous to the Iberic nose, it has softened the Angle mouth, it has put mirth and humor into the Iberic tempera- ment and made less tractable the Iberic hair. The jaw is left unchanged. The in- ferior maxillary formation is hard to alter, and reformation for unusual beauty is rare. When the enormous influx of Scandina- vians, Germans, etc., into the country is considered, it is pertinent to inquire what effects such combinations with the composite American blood in its present constituency SCANDINAVIAN-TEUTONIC WITH SLIGHT SEMITIC STRAIN will have. It would seem that the Teutonic nose, with its slightly bulbous end, is made straight, the eye is enlarged and the tend- ency to meagerness, so often seen in com- posite American faces, is beautifully offset by a rounding out of the neck, chin, throat and cheeks. A word as to the future in conclusion. The greater portion of the new racial admixture which we are accepting is Iberic, Slavic and Semitic in its divi- sions. Inthe southernItal- ian’s blood is some Nor- man, some Moorish. The blood of the Jews, racially the purest of the old strains, has not yet begun to tell its story, be- cause with them the lines of race and religion are so nearly parallel, and few intermar riages have resulted as yet. The Slavs, how- ever, are in- termarr ying freely with composite Americans, and in two more generations, when some one else makes a little study of the blood of the American beauty, he will have the Iberic, Slavic and Semitic strains to un- tangle, while the Teutonic, Anglo-Saxon and Celtic will have been almost completely merged into what will then be the com- posite American. It is too soon yet to hazard any state- ment as to definite features, but that type, however built up, is certain to be beautiful in the extreme. my noes Baio

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FLORENCE ROCKWELL, LEADING WOMAN OF RICHARD MANSFIELD’S COMPANY Our Pampered Actors and Their Condescension BY ALAN DALE USH! noise. megaphone “rubberneck “That house,” he says, pointing to a lordly man- sion, “belongs to the fa- mous actor whose work you have so often enjoyed. Note Not quite so much Please listen to the man on the coach.” %4 it well, for it is worth your attention, situated as it is on the beautiful Riverside Drive, overlooking the river, with a charming view of Jersey, and a panoramic picture of the river’s silver life, etc., etc.” Involuntarily you lower your voice, as in the presence of a beautiful mystery, and look reverently at the home of the favorite Thespian. The gods have favored him, and his pinnacled superiority is not without appeal. A sense of your own inferiority strikes you with a sudden shock, and you wonder whether it would be worth while alighting from the coach, and waiting in the road for a chance to watch the famous mummer as he emerges from his mansion to step into his five-thousand-dollar motor car that you see before you. The one thing that is as plain as the nose on your face is that this pampered being would not deign to notice your presence. Your adulation he would accept as a fore- gone conclusion, as part and parcel of his 65

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68 Cosmopolitan Magazine perquisites; but your opinion of him as an actor, acting various r6les for the delectation of the multitude, would not interest him at all. He has won his spurs and is reveling in his luxurious ease. “Set a beggar on horseback, and he will ride a-gallop”; and that is precisely what the actor is doing to-day, thanks to extensive criticism, prodigious, yet gratuitous, adver- tisement, and the attention of the public that, rightly or wrongly, looks upon him as a respite from the sordid cares of the day, and the key to certain enchanted realms that lessen the misery of the rigid, ugly thorough- fares devoted to the bread-and-butter struggle. This same lordly being, whose shoes you would scarcely be considered good enough to blacken, belongs to a profession that not so very long ago was looked upon with the iciest contempt. His life, and the life of all his company, was half bourgeois, half Bohe mian. He was doomed, like the Wandering Jew, to incessant travel. His children were born to him on his journeys, and at four or five years of age made their appearance in the theater. It was a hard and grimy life. The actor was a vagrant, a “strolling player ””—thankful for a bit of appreciation, somewhat sycophantic, usually oppressed. It seems incredible to-day, doesn’t it? It suggests some impossible romance, much more farfetched than anything that ever happened in the “Arabian Nights Entertain- ments.” The critics and the general public of to-day who kowtow to the actor, and are beginning to feel grateful to him for allowing them to occupy the same earth with him, are absolutely unable to realize it. They cannot believe that things were ever other- wise. The critic, overjoyed when some great star condescends to admit that he has glanced over his review, and the public, falling over each other for autographs and pictures, have both forgotten that any other condition ever prevailed. For the actor there isno such thingas “the good old days.” They were bad old days with a vengeance. You would think that the once poor Thespian realized and was innately grateful for a set of circumstances that has raised him from his groveling to a pinnacle from which kings view him, and presidents com- ment upon his work—for advertising pur poses. One would imagine that a deep sense of thankfulness would infuse itself through his being—allied with the sensation of insecurity that things temporal should always induce. Do not think it for a moment. Just as the household pet, who has lived upon the fat of your land, turns and bites the hand that fed him, so does the actor, forgetful of all that has brought him to his happy goal, treat his benefactors. For it is publicity that has made the actor. It is the serious words of thoughtful men that have given him a hallowed resting- place. In the old days, when men like Hazlitt, Leigh Hunt and Charles Lamb, intellectual, well-read, reflective, deliber- ately used their pens for the furtherance of dramatic art, the actor began to be a person to reckon with. Then came the gossipy newspapers, catering to a seemingly justi- fiable demand on the part of the public to know something intimate about these maligned puppets. Like the wart on the nose of the gentle- man in the comic song, it grew and it grew. To-day it has reached such abnormal pro- portions that it is almost impossible to find any publication without dramatic gossip or criticism. The actor comes first in the imagined public demand. If he says any- thing, it is double-leaded; if he does any- thing, it is ‘‘scare-headed.” His fights with his managers, his quarrels with his company, his rebukes of the public (quite often he rebukes the public!), his ire at the critics—all these are set forth from day to day with graphic precision. Even in the lower ranks of the “profes- sion” the same thing holds good. The typewriter girl, the maiden in the dry-goods store, the cook and the housemaid, all women who are occasionally interesting, could no more creep into print than they could into Utopia. But let a ten-dollar chorus-girl in a third-rate company run off and get married, and the next day you’ll get it for breakfast and luncheon and dinner. Naturally, the actor, not being quite a fool, has grown over-elated at a sense of his own superiority. Why not? If we boomed plumbers as we boom actors (and the plumber is of more real use in the com- munity), it is quite certain that they would end by looking down upon us from a height. Success, if, indeed, there be such a thing (and I doubt it), is utterly demoralizing. In the case of the actor, however, con- demned to pretend that he is somebody else seven times a week—imagining himself kings, princes, noblemen, lawgivers and ‘ + pihleisia ite

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wii! er ee ne : a Pw r , ; ‘i vl wl | | H vi uy | ‘il ! ee “wig Hil ni “ue ili i i Yi ae iit aM ' + | il “¢ | i t * t " nS _ th hal ; i a a 7 : : % ; / J “ sig? ve . .* ‘ J if hil " ; } Bs e a “ : a P pil L hp ys ‘ hile ‘ SS , mn WH ill } sites LH ' SeRUEREER DATED Lge ite heat ii ds be sy ~ Ha ati li : HH Hn MAA Eo _ TT ri ca i a ng HT AXINE ELLIOTT 1N “HER GREAT MATCH.” WHI

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Hie | : hi ily oN Ht i‘ A HI HI AAA A HH AY HHH HW MH Hh / HTH ‘ul Mt i Hl HI ELSIE JANIS, IN HER GREAT SUCCESS, “THE VANDERBILT CUP”

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i —— iii Hi iii oo sa | ay telebe | Mi i Heth, ; a a } ' § it \ er i. : ; 1 ie i ha it : i '. & ih ws iy wy”) i ; { Hint i A ot sil FAY DAVIS, LEADING WOMAN IN LAVEDAN’S DRAMA, “THE DUEL,” THE RECENT SUCCESS OF THE COMED/E FR A NCAISE

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72 Cosmopolitan Magazine Biblical potentates—it is particularly de- moralizing. The actor being “there’’ is not sane enough to remember how he got “there.” If it was the intellectual man of reflective mind who, using his pen on the actor sub- ject for the benefit of the public, gave stage work its real value, the actor has forgotten it. As one of the most perfect instances of unmitigated but amusing impertinence that I have noted in a lengthening career, I will point to a meeting that took place not very long ago. At this gathering of actors, there was a discussion on the sublime subject of whether the dramatic criticism of to-day is a menace to the stage! A_ beautiful lady, utterly unknown a few years ago and once tremendously grateful to me (I thank her!) for having discovered her, was a mov- ing spirit in the proceedings. All these people whom the silence of the press would relegate to domestic service or the back- woods, sat in meeting, debating whether dramatic criticism is a menace to the stage! One’s sense of humor gets an outing on an occasion like that, and simply revels. It was quite stupendously exhilarating. Yet beneath it all was an underlying touch of pathos. After all, it seemed a bit pitiful to think of a score of people always promi nent in the newspapers, with a string of men ready to record any little dramatic effort they might see fit to make, so utterly lost to all sense of decent gratitude and appreciation as to make such an exhibition of glaring egomania. Laugh? Of course one had to do it! Yet the pathos of the thing was ineffable. It was sad as the sight of a blind man but- ting his head against a stone wall and revel- ing in his bruises. Think how, years ago in the days of the strolling player, one word of comment would have been treasured as a gift from heaven. Yet to-day expensive men are retained to devote their entire time to the doings of the actor. They sit and wait until Miss Coughdrop is ready to produce her new play, and then rush to write a column about it. Miss Coughdrop accepts the situation. She realizes its supreme im- portance, but takes it quite as a matter of course. The man who makes an invention of importance to the entire civilized world does not get twelve obsequious attendants to print a column about it the next morning, and display it in flaring letters to an ex- pectant public. The actor, overnourished by thisexcess of attention, isnot improved by it. Dramatic art is not developing. The actor of to-day compared with the actor of the past is as water unto wine. It is in ma- terial prosperity and overweening impu- dence that he has developed and it is in no other way. In fact the magnificent gifts showered by journalism upon a thankless stage have produced acondition of gangrene. What would Hazlitt, Leigh Hunt, and Charles Lamb say to mummers who allied themselves with managers who are _per- mitted to muzzle the pens of the men who write for the stage? It is almost impossi- ble to imagine. To them it would seem too incredible to discuss. Yet the actor has turned to bite the hand that fed him. Some of those, who in sane moments of expansion could be made to admit that they owe their vogue to the noble attentions of the press, place them- selves in a position where they dare not invite certain reviewers to see them. The vagrant player has evolved into a lordly mansion-owning autocrat, who, if he cares to do so, can shake himself free from the comment that “ made”’ him and that he may think he no longer needs. Nobody can get out of the perspective as completely as the actor. It is due of course to his enlarged egomania that shuts off the view of important details. It is certainly our own fault. We have given him more than is good for him. He took it like a greedy child and assimilated it quickly, but that does not lessen the size of our own stupidity. While we may never be able to get the demon back into the bottle, for he has grown far too inflated for its restricted neck, it is quite possible and more than probable that a reaction will set in and abnormal conditions be normalized. We have been overkind to our pets, though there is a reason for it. In its best sense the stage is surely a delightful institution. It takes us away from our own morbid selves; it gives us a few hours of self-forgetfulness. We live with the actors in the enchanted realms that they people. ‘The power of the stage for health-giving reaction is beyond all argument. In our gratitude we went too far. Our favorites have overridden us. To-day they are the superiors and we are the inferiors. They are monarchs of all they survey, and we are what they survey.

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ALTE III MRS. E. D. MORGAN OF NEW YORK (ON RIGHT) WINNING A WOMAN’S RACE AT COWES, ENGLAND Yachtswomen of America BY GERTRUDE LYNCH LEOPATRA was the first yachtswoman of note. The \ various episodes of her sensa- yj tional career hold the inter- 4) est to the exclusion of more § worthy records, and among these stands out the mental & picture when, as mistress of the flower-decked barge, she sailed down the historic Cydnus to meet Antony. But, even in the enthralling moments on that famous excursion, never did the Serpent of Old Nile, inspiration as she was and has been for generations of songs and stories, compare in all that goes to the making of true beauty, as evidenced by the evolution of the centuries, with the Queen of the Helm to-day. Like Cleopatra she is the victim of the sorcery of the sea, that hypnotism of nature which, once submitted to, enthralls more and more until the power as well as the wish to resist is gone. But the inactive, sensuous life on the 73 ° flower-decked barge has been superseded by an earnest, intellectual and scientific research along nautical lines. The portrait of Cleopatra has given place to that of a women tense in muscle as in purpose, with a clear eye fixed on a far horizon or studying the quadrant at her side. She arranges her own wind-blown draperies and she knows when to reef a sail and when to take advantage of the caprices of wind and current. It is true that there are thousands of Cleopatras now—women who recline at ease upon the deck with no other thought than that their gowns are suitable for the occasion, their coquetries assured; who lose sight of the mental enjoyment of con- trolling elemental forces just as they are blind to the colors of sky and sea. They may even be in the majority, but the ma- jority are rarely worthy of description. The minority—meaning those animated by the alert mind in the vigorous body— are by no means confined to women of the leisure class whose effort has for u/tima 6

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/ thule their own enjoyment or the rivalry of sex against sex. Hanging on the wall of many a luxurious yacht-cabin, carefully protected by glass and frame, and usually in the place of honor, is the certificate of competency furnished by the government to anyone, man or woman, who has successfully passed the requisite examination for pilot or master. Many a feminine yacht owner, many a sister or wife of such, displays this badge of merit so that he who sways may read of her achievement. Many a woman of different standing in the social and financial world displays it no less zealously, in strong- box or neatly arranged locker; to her it is the synonym of a bank account, the security of tried abilities, a part of the practical equipment of her profession. According to marine statistics, there are a large number of our river, sound and lake boats, both passenger and freight, cap- tained by the so-called gentler sex—the adjective is almost a misnomer when applied in this context. The history of the water attests that they are well commanded, a fact which may be believed as recorded, for if chivalry does not stand shivering on 74 Cosmopolitan Magazine the brink its fingers are certainly too numb to alter the register of marine events. On the Mississippi and Ohio Rivers, many women are to be found in the pilot houses. They could furnish no daily hint to the fashionable pages, likely it is that they wear neither Parisian nor Fifth Ave- nue capotes; their hair, which blows loosely about their heads, has never known the mysteries of the Broadway shampoo and flourishes Juxuriantly nevertheless, sun and air furnishing very able understudies; their gowns would never be displayed in a second-hand clothing shop—that last trib- ute to sartorial finery. But the most careless observer could not avoid being as much attracted by the lithe and supple motions of hand and wrist on the wheel, the keen outlook on the chess- board of tangled shipping as by the abso- lute unconsciousness of the fact that they are doing anything extraordinary. They are the Mrs. Lecks and Mrs. Aleshines of navigation, doing unusual things in a usual way and when off duty exchanging recipes for ginger cake. Licenses to command river and other inland navigating vessels do not compre- hend the character of government certifi- MRS, GEORGE BULLOCK SAILING THE SABRINA AT OYSTER BAY, NEW YORK i 4 : : ‘ oR Sore te AS eA OES

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sate tes eat tain i ' cates issued to women, for a number possess licenses authorizing them to sail on any seas, on deep-water pleasure craft as the authorized and legalized masters of such craft, their papers entitling them to use and to be addressed by the term of “Captain.” In this list may be found the well-known names of the Countess Festetics de Tolna of San Francisco, and Miss Jane Morgan of Phila- delphia who commands her ocean-going steamer Waterus. Some time ago Lady Ernestine Brudenell Bruce, a_ well-known yachtswoman of Eng- land, prepared herself thoroughly in seaman- ship and navigation, then went before the British board of trade and applied for exam- ination as to her capa- bilities for holding an English yachting license. Her application was re- fused on the ground that the board of trade recognized the word “master’’ as applying only to the male sex, and so declined to en- tertain her name for the eligible list. The comparison need not be further insisted upon than by a simple narration of fact. To secure an ocean-navigation license requires that the applicant shall be well grounded in the science of navigation, in the handling of steam vessels under all conditions of wind and weather, and shall be able to pass a satisfactory examination in nautical lore before the United States inspectors of steam vessels. So little has generally been learned con- cerning the deep interest taken by women in this subject and so quietly have they been making themselves proficient that even from the officers of the yacht clubs, where they are enrolled as flag members, it is difficult to get accurate information concerning this chapter of sport. In one of the best known of these clubs, Yachtswomen of America MISS LOUDON SAILING THE JMP IN A WOMAN'S RACE, OYSTER BAY whose membership list runs into the thou- sands, it is asserted that the only interest women who own yachts display is in desiring to become flag members, not from love of the sport itself, but because only in that way can they avail themselves of the yacht stations along the coast, and when in foreign waters obtain the privileges shown to all-those who display the club’s burgee. This club, and others visited, have no “ ladies’ days”’; the women yacht owners never come to the clubhouse—it is stated without apparent regret; they never take part in the annual cruises and display, so it is claimed, no desire to compete for trophies. To offset these hasty conclusions, by no means monopolized by one or two of those interviewed, are the daily-press reports in the yachting seasons and the interesting records of a well-known “nautical college,” in New York, where on the roll of pupils are the names of many of both sexes

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76 Cosmopolitan Magazine prominent in yachting circles. ‘These stu- dents not only receive instruction through the winter season, but have practical lessons on board the yachts themselves during the late spring and summer. For many years there have been special classes for women in which they have learned not only the mystery of knots, bends and splices, but how to keep a docker as neat as a work-basket, the manipulation of rigging and sail and the handling of vari- VIRGINIA, WHICH MRS, W. K. ous kinds of pleasure craft, from the natty catboat, raceabout and knockabout to the more formidable cutter, yawl, schooner, brigantine and even the full-rigged ship. Large working-models of the above named are used for these lessons; they are full rigged to the most minute shackle, thimble and block and so lofty that they scrape the ceiling. Several of them are fifteen feet long, while each one represents the latest development of the type. Once started on this path, there seems to be no end to the interest and ability displayed. Like the novice housekeeper who begins by dusting furniture and ends by studying the mechanism of furnace and boiler, so the yachtswoman has taken, it would seem, all knowledge of seamanship for her possession. There is no country in the world which can boast such a list of practical yachts- women as America. It is true that at Ryde and Cowes interesting regattas for feminine participants may be witnessed VANDERBILT, JR., OFTEN SAILS every week or so during the summer—but talk to a British sportsman on the subject, and ten to one he will mention these places immediately. On this side of the water there are a dozen or more vantage points where from windows of clubhouses, or other equally desirable “coignes,”’ all through our racing season, which every year begins earlier and ends later, it is possible to watch the manceuvers of skill- fully navigated craft, the masculine ele- ment conspicuous by its absence or subor- dinate presence. The witness of this truth

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is shown at Larchmont, Oyster Bay, In- dian Harbor, Newport, Shelter Island, New London and a hundred other places where the headquarters of yachts are made. Among the women members of the New York and other American yacht clubs, MRS. WILLIAM A. BARSTOW AT MISS A, EAGLE IN HER SPEEDY YACHT, S1\/OXKE, ON LONG ISLAND SOUND whose names are entered on the books as owners and masters of yachts, are Mesdames Robert Goelet, A. S. Van Wickle, Lucy Carnegie, H. de Blois Gibson, A. Van Rensselaer, whose yacht May is_nick- named “ Matchmaker” for obvious reasons, THE TILLER OF THE COCKA700

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NAHMA, OWNED BY MRS, ROBERT GOELET, WHO HAS LEARNED TO TAKE COMMAND OF THE VESSEL Emma T. Bannigan, J. M. Curtis, A. M. McGregor, C. M. Cummings, F. B. Myrick, J. Roosevelt, E. S. Lee and the Misses Eloise Breese, Mary Packer and Jane Thayer. Of these, Mrs. Robert Goelet, Miss Breese, Mrs. Carnegie, the Baroness Julia de Rothschild, Mrs. Charles Robinson, who has recently purchased the old Daunt- less of record-making fame,and Miss Thayer own their yachts outright. In addition to these, there is another list of names, secondary only by chance. Their owners not only occupy positions of im- portance in the social and financial world, but in the moments when they are free from exactions of this nature can handle a yacht with the same ease and efficiency that they display in more personal matters. The trig twenty-to-thirty foot raceabouts and knockabouts replace to a great extent the catboat at present. They give the appearance to the harbors of meadows covered with a convention of white butter- flies. They require skill, seamanship and nerve to handle, yet make no great inroads on the supply of vitality and strength. For this reason they are especially popular with the amateur yachtswomen and those fearful of greater responsibility and absorption. The annual races for women rivals have brought many of their captains into promi- nence, and along parts of the Eastern coast the names of craft which have made good records are as familiar as those of thorough- breds at Belmont Park or Gravesend. 78 One of the most widely advertised of these many races took place a couple of years ago at Oyster Bay when Miss Anna Mathewson with the Bairn crossed the line two minutes ahead of Miss Mary Young in the Chipmunk and six ahead of Mrs. W. Stewart in the Bobs. Both the Sabrina, with Mrs. George Bullock at the helm, and The Fly, sailed by Miss Christine Roosevelt, one of the many cousins of the President, were prominent features of the contest, although the women navigators failed to take trophies. From the handling of these small craft, which may be termed the practical primer of navigation, there are many arduous steps to a graduation as a first-class navi- gator, the diploma for which sets forth that the holder has mastered the mysteries of all practical problems in geo- and celo- navigation and may safely be entrusted to navigate a vessel around the world. Mrs. Robert Goelet, Mrs. Howard Gould and Mrs. Charles Parker have taken diplomas of this kind at the nautical college. Although not so well known as these women, Miss Thoms deserves mention for the proficiency she has displayed along the same line, her accomplishment setting at rest any inquiry as to the practical appli- cation of knowledge of this character. She is a graduate of the same college and studied from the same charts and with the same apparatus as her better known con- temporaries. Unlike them, she has taken Sy Ie NB het «nents ete toile META | At Acai A RN RH I Ma me casters

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+H aoe Damier Ve aa a NIAGARA, FOR WHICH MRS. HOWARD GOULD HOLDS A MASTER-MARINER’S CERTIFICATE charge of a merchant vessel going around Cape Horn while its regular officers were incapacitated and brought it safely into San Francisco Bay, a feat rewarded by the underwriters, who presented her with a valuable testimonial of their admiration and gratitude. Miss Thoms’ example has been seconded by other women in other circumstances, and hour after hour these pilots and master mariners, to whom seafaring knowledge is the stock in trade, guide their craft through tortuous channels, directing the movements of mighty engines by signals upon the bell- pulls. They know the names and _his- tories of all the passing vessels; they are as familiar with the storm as the sunlight; they can make landings with expert ease; and when the banks on either side are shut out from view by the blankets of fog, they are as fearless and as cautious as a member of society in her drawing-room, steering her way carefully between the shoals and secrets of diplomacy. Not only are these feminine pilots to be found in the rivers and seas mentioned, but nearer home, as, for example on Chesapeake Bay and Long Island Sound, licenses have frequently been issued to them as navigators, authorizing them to act as masters of steam vessels, and, strange as it may read to those who class women as careless, capricious beings, not a single report of accident, where the fair skipper has been at fault, has ever been recorded against a craft that has sailed with a woman at her helm. This truth is attested by all those who have taught women seamanship and navi- gation. It is said by these authorities that they are careful of consequences; they obey orders without question and in addition are not apt to tamper with the possibilities of accident that lurk in the cup that cheers to such an extent that its sound- ings are measured too often for prudence. Mrs. S. E. Ballard of St. Louis is the licensed pilot and master of the steam- boat Lola and is certificated to ply up and down the Mississippi River, and Mrs. Mary Greene of Cincinnati is master of the steamboat Greenland which she com- mands on the Ohio and Kanawha Rivers. This vessel has sixty staterooms and carries one hundred and twenty-five pas- sengers. Miss Carrie B. Hunter of Snow Hill, Maryland, is the owner and master of the steamboat Carrie in which she navi- gates Chesapeake Bay. Occasionally there comes to the port of Cleveland the six-hundred-ton schooner Marengo, which does not, to casual sight, differ materially from other vessels that ply the Great Lakes as free lances, taking 79

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8o Cosmopolitan Magazine up and putting down cargos wherever desired. This “tramp” steamer, which does not deserve the stigma of its name, hard-working little craft that it is, has the distinction of being commanded by the only woman sailing master in that body cf water, Miss Lillian McGowan, who, at the ripe age of sixteen, with her hair falling in a braid down her back, careless of the fripperies of her sex and youth, can not only give orders to the crew about her as to the proper passage and landing of the vessel, but when her orders are not exe- cuted promptly enough, can turn to and execute them herself. The question is often asked as to what possible advantage it can be to a woman to hold a certificate as master, captain or pilot on a vessel thoroughly equipped with well-paid and competent officers. The answer to this is given in the experience of Miss Thoms and others as well as in the statement that in no situation in life is there such probability of accident, no such chance to avert discomfort, at least, by knowledge and skill and presence of mind as on board ship. A thorough grounding in seamanship and navigation is a trusty staff; it may never be needed it is true, but its possession spells security. This is a truth to which the women yacht owners testify not orly in word but in deed. Then there is the potent reason that every intellectual enjoyment is like virtue, self-rewarding. The mountain climber can never make those who stand at the foot or midway on the slope believe that the view from the summit has doubly repaid his exertion. It is the mysterious secret of achievement that only the laurel-crowned can understand what they have really gained. The mental quickening which comes to the master of craft is as distinct an enjoy- ment as the feel of the fingers on the wheel, the salt spray against the cheek, the thrill that comes when the vessel, like a bird obeying the call of the fowler, leaps to the hand and crosses the line one minute ahead of the near-by rival. The Modern Pagan BY HERBERT BASHFORD OF all that walk the world to-day, I hold That man the lowest of the pagan breed Whose body is a soulless house of Greed, Whose heart is but a hardened lump of mould, Who worships but an idol wrought of gold— An idol fashioned out of Human Need— Who consecrates his life to this one creed, ‘¢Get riches though men’s very blood be sold!”’ The starving poor—what recks he of their woes? And what to him the bitter cry of pain Of all that bleed beneath Oppression’s rod ? No lily speaks to him, no climbing rose ; He hearkens only to the voice of Gain And grips in clammy palms his yellow god.

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att tll AIRE tT ARNE A aT Pei OR BSMB Ue e Ste Pelican Smith, Matador BY WALLACE IRWIN Tllustrated by Otto Schneider YM fond of animals and hate to see ’em misused, though I a never belonged to the So- 4 ciety for the Prevention of exY¥ Anything, neither am I much of a Hindu for patting a cobras on the head or carry- 4) ing jelly custard to sick and jailing bobcats. But for a § man that’s seen ’most every kind of two- and four-footed activity from Maine to Mexico, I pride myself that I’m tol’able easy and soft-hearted when it comes to dogs and horses and tame cattle. I guess that weakness is what done for me the time a kind but firm Providence lifted me right into the middle of a Tia Juana bull-ring and hollered, ‘‘Now fight, durn ye, or the Mexican authorities ‘Il carry you home in a coal scuttle.” It was in the fall of ’97 when it began to dawn upon me that it was regular hydro- phobia weather all over the United States of America. I was in San Diego, one mile’s ride from the Mexican boundary, at the time, and the more questions people began asking about my past, present and future, the warmer the weather seemed to grow and the more longing-like I gazed into the cool places over on the greaser side. In some ways I hated to leave San Diego. I had been making my living in a quiet, mod- est fashion selling smuggled Ensenada cigars at a Klondike profit. But the rev- enue laws were death on free trading down there, and one day when a gilt-whiskered, hoop-legged government agent, name of Heintz, came mule-nosing into town, I seen it was my move for the cactus belt. That night he called on me but I wasn’t to home; so he dumped my stock of eleven thousand bit cigars into a hay wagon, swept the dust out of my money drawer and puiled down the blinds. Where was I? On the road to Tia Juana, Mexico; for I had folded up my coat like the hoboes and silently sneaked away. Tia Juana, which is a tarantula-bitten little cow-hole forgotten by Diaz and neglected by the buzzards, wasn’t exactly a stranger tome. ‘Two years before, I had been riding for Bud Hanson at the Guada- lupe ranch, and about every Sunday after- noon I used to come into town and take supper with Alvarado Adams. Was it his daughter, Tessie, I came to see? Perish the thought. Who ever heard of a hand- some, reckless young son-of-a-pirate riding twelve miles on a summer evening just to see the prettiest girl on the mesa? It’s her pa or her ma that the feller always comes courting, and if the young folks are thrown together once in a while, why it’s jest the fault of somebody’s carelessness. I used to sit for hours listening to Old Man Adams’s pigeontoed English; for he’s half Mexican and yellow to the backbone. Sometimes the old gentleman would feel a bit tired and go to bed early. Then me and Tessie —jest to be polite—would sit out in the patio for an hour or so and swap intelli- gence. It didn’t take more than two or three Sundays of this sort of thing to make me realize, as it were, that Tessie was about the loveliest, educatedest little sefio- rita that ever walked in shoe leather. I got talkative one evening and told her about it, and then there was an argument during which she shot off some tin-foil ideas she’d learned at school up to Frisco. I reckon [ came back a little peevish, for the next day I found myself riding into the States trying to invent a new cuss-word to fit the Mexican republic. I hadn’t been back to Tia Juana for two years, and that day in ’97 when I crept in ahead of the revenue officers I found the place quite a bit changed. Alvarado Adams, who owns about half the town, had evidently caught onto the fact that the American tourist is a good thing when handled right. He had gone to work and turned the pueblo into a combination tamale restaurant, curio store and side- 81

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82 Cosmopolitan Magazine show. Right in the middle of the old ’dobe plaza he had put up a board fence and was charging Eastern schoolma’ams a dollar a head to see a bunch of peons in pink tights a-badgering some tame cattle. This I learned from the red circus posters pasted all over the lumber. I had slept in the chaparral the night before, and I was rotten cold. I made a dead set for Castro’s mescal shop, hoping to pour a little fire into my bones, when, bang! right in the middle of the road I ran into Alvarado himself piking along on his white mare. He seen me, and his little olu brindle face puckered into a bunch of smiles. The American half of him was pleased as pork, which would of made me feel kind and cordial if I hadn’t known that the greaser half of him was a-looking for a nice soft place in my short ribs to stick a knife into. He said some sentimental things about old friends, and rolled me a cigarette. Then he invited me over to Castro’s to have a drink, and it began to steal over me more and more that Alvarado was looking for a white man to do his dirty work, “Are you employed, Pelican?” he asked me, as soon as we had put away some of Castro’s Mexican poison. I told him that I could look a job of work between the eyes without swooning away. He seemed kind of relieved at that and proceeded to hypnotize me with his troubles. It seems that Alvarado had gone into the bull-ring business about three months be- fore. He’d been giving exhibitions every Sunday since, charging the tourists a dollar a head to see the show. The bulls were beef-stock off the Guadalupe ranch, fierce for looks, but doves for fighting. But the game looked good to the crowd and Alva- rado’d hired Mazzantinito, a grand-stand matador from the City of Mexico, to do all the scrapping there was to be found. Everything was lovely as a summer sea till one day Mazzantinito went for the mes- cal and behaved like a buffalo in a loco- patch. As soon as the Demon Booze got a clamp on him he graduated from _bull- fighting and took to rassling with green and purple reptiles. The week before, Alva- rado said, he got full of joy and went into the ring with such a ginger on that they had to stop the fight. The governor-general, who was there, warned Alvarado not to pull off another of those fluke combats or he’d fine him a thousand pesos and take away his license, according to government regulations. Alvarado told me all this with tears standing in his eyes as big as cucumbers. He had only one decent toro- sticker left, a greaser name of Ortega. He was a great friend of the family, says Alva- rado, and he was paying Tessie continuous and devoted attention. “Qh, is he?” says I, kind of careless and indifferent. “Now, Pelican,” says the old man, ‘“‘ you mucho good friend to me. You do me one little favor. Be matador to-morrow, please.” He just curled this off as cool as if he’d been asking me to have another cigarette. Did I throw down my hand? Not so sudden. I got behind the cards and did some lofty calculating. Secret Service Heintz would most likely be in Tia Juana to-morrow—feller name of Ortega paying Tessie particular and devoted attention Five minutes later Castro was passing more medicine over the bar and I was telling Alvarado that I was willing to catch elephants with a figure-four trap to please his slightest whim. About noontime I helped him onto his horse and he left me with a promise in my pocket for two hun- dred dollars to give one performance the next day. Iwas to go on the programme as Mazzantinito, and the audience was to get the benefit of my inexperience. Up to that time, I guess, I’d been in every trade, profession and fake that’s going on this side of the continent, but bullfighting was a new card even in my full hand. I rolled the idea round in my head all after- noon, and the more I thought of it the better I liked it. To be sure, bullfighting isn’t a parlor game for every amateur to tackle, but I’d looked down the barrel of stranger propositions in my time. And then Heintz—would he be looking for Pelican Smith in the midst of a Mexican bull-ring jabbing cattle to the tune of “La Paloma”? Hardly. Sure, I liked the idea fine that day, being some young and considerable of a hell-bending fool in such matters. I passed the afternoon between Castro’s mescal and Guerrera’s cigars. About sun- down, being tired of the Aztec scenery and Mexican smells, I stood on the steps of the curio store and prayed for excitement. I got it. Up the main street trotted a little gray

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I GOT TALKATIVE ONE EVENING AND TOLD HER ABOUT IT

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84 Cosmopolitan Magazine raare drawing a red buckboard, and on the seat was Tessie Adams a-laughing and jabbering in Spanish with a paisano dude that sat ’longside of her. They drew up next to the platform and the dude got down. He says adies so often and so soulful that it made me kind of tired and impa- tient. Fellers in love, says I, get more sympathy than they deserve, and I was fingering the Armored Cruiser in my belt, longing for a.wing shot, when the Mexicano pulls off his sombrero again and hikes up the road toward the station. ‘‘Good-by, Mr. Ortega,” I heard Tessie warble in United States, but before she could turn her cayuse for home I was standing in the middle of the road with my hat in my hand. “Why, Pelican Smith,” says Tessie, pull- ing up the horse and looking at me with a flush that would beat four of a kind, ‘What are you doing in Tia Juana?” “Didn’t your dad tell you?” says I. ‘“He’s hired me to come here and teach that little two-by-four Ortega how a white man fights bulls. I’m a matador,” says I. Tessie threw back her head and let out a whoop that set the coyotes to warbling up and down the ravine. ‘“‘Where did you learn to fight bulls ? she says. “Tnever learnt it. It just came natural,” says I. Then I jumped into the rig beside her, and the first y’knew we was driving down the road toward the Adams hacienda and I was telling her that it would take a whole army like Ortega to show me how the trick was done. I said so many othernice, compli- mentary things about the little feller that I reckon Tessie must have took it personal, for all of a sudden I noticed that she was a-looking out over the brush absent-minded and abstracted. It got dusky and _ the moon sailed out of the chaparral as we drove home, but she didn’t seem inclined to talk. Every time I looked at those black eyes and the night-colored forelock blowing across her cheek, my heart jest buck- stepped and rolled over. Pretty soon we drove up in front of the house. A peon came out of the shadow and held the horse while I helped Tessie down as polite and gentle as I knew how. “Good night, Mister Smith,” she says, handing me one of those ice-cream hand- shakes she’d learnt up to the city. But in a second I’d grabbed her two little brown hands and I says: “Tessie, I don’t know a bullfight from a hole in the fence, and maybe you’ll see me do the Christian-martyr stunt to-morrow at half- past two. But I know one thing—when you look at me like you’re a-looking now I could fight a herd of puma-cats with turpentine on their tails. Say that you like me better than him, Tessie, and I’ll go up against all the bulls from here to Guadalupe.” I was so feverish and enthusiastic about what I was going to do that I shot off a lot more of this brand of desert wind without drawing a fresh breath. Pretty soon Tessie looks up and says: “‘Good night— Pelican. Maybe Vl cali your bluff—to- morrow.” Then she ran into the house, while I stood there yapping at the moon and feeling like a cross between an Aztec god and a Digger Indian. Next morning I arose early and et a hearty breakfast, just like the papers say about the guy who’s going to be hung for killing a Chinaman. All during the fore noon the folks kept blowing into town the way you see ’em to-day. At one o’clock they opened the grand stand, so I went over to the dressing-room to get on my fighting-togs. I found ’em, what there was of ’em, hanging on a hook in a little room off the bull-pen. When I took a look at those red velvet pantalets and those white silk picnic stockings, and that sawed- off coat all barnacled over with glass beads like a chandelier, I wanted to go back to California and stand trial. Then I re- membered that you’ve got to eat the fat meat with the lean, as the papoose said when he swallowed the horned toad, so I stretched myself into the pants and worked myself into the coat; but when it came to pulling on those stockings, son, I just chawed the bit and shied halfway ’cross the road. ‘There are some things,” I said, “which a white man can’t swaller without a chaser, and that’s one of ’em.” So I left those stockings hanging on the hook and pulled on my shoes, leaving my legs as bare as nature made ’em and God intended ’em. I never was much on what you might call beauty, but when I stood there in that loco, star-spangled outfit, I felt as if it was almost unnecessary to make a homely man so conspicuous. Pretty soon in came a Juan and a Pedro ot

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diked out in the same circus clothes as me. When they seen my bare legs they kind of gasped as if I’d done something against the law. You see, there were just a hundred and thirty-eight rules for bullfighting. I broke ’em all before the fight was over. Then in come Ortega. He was good- looking for a greaser, but he wore a sort of Nanny-come-uppy expression that meant trouble for him and me. He gheeked a while at my legs and then he says, “Ex- cuse me, but what style of fight do you follow ?” “Style?” says I. ‘‘What’s style?” “What method do you use?” asks Ortega, sticking out his cane like a sword; “Do you use the Mazzantini attack ?” “Just you run along and get into your fighting-clothes,”’ says I. ‘‘ This tussle ain’t a-going to have any other style than the good old London prize-ring rules.” Ortega went away swearing soft and sweet in Spanish, but when I seen him next he was taking a half-hitch in his necktie as gentle and innocent as a tarantula in a feather bed. Outside I could hear the teams and buggies scraping along the ’dobe road and the ‘‘ohs” and ‘‘ahs” of the schoolma’ams who was being lied to by the guides hired for the purpose. Back of the corral an old feller was saying: “There, ladies, is the bulls. Eight fierce, fighting animals from Madrid, Spain—yes, ma’am.” “Will they hook?” asks a femynine voice. “Hook!” says he. “Not one of them brutes but has claimed his bleeding vic- tims.” When I heard this I jest layed back and hollered, thinking of the imitation of the whole outfit—imitation bulls, imita- tion audience, and me the dumdest imita- tion that ever walloped a red rag. I could hear the crowd hobnailing on the boards above, bringing down their heels like a drum corps—one-two—one- two-three. ‘The Mexicanos in the crowd clapped their hands and yelled “Musica! Musica!” till the band jumped into “La Paloma” with head down and all four feet. “Tf I die I reckon I'll be killed to music which will be right agreeable for all par- ties,” says I, When nobody was a-looking I slipped the Armored Cruiser into my sash. It wasn’t a bullfighting weapon, but a mighty good tool either to scare up trouble or to stop it on a down grade. Then I folded Pelican Smith, Matador 85 my arms and felt like a picture I once seen of Napoleon conquering Mt. Vesuvius. “You, Ortega, march next to me,” I says, ‘‘and you, Pedro, can trail. Get ready for excitement,” says I, picking up a plush cloak that looked like the back of a parlor chair. ‘“‘Are you ready?” asks Alvarado, stick- ing his head through a window. “Fire away,” says I through my teeth, for I was trying to keep my heart from jumping out of my mouth. I thought I heard some one finding fault with my legs after the door was opened and we marched out into the arena, but the band was playing and the greasers were yelling ‘‘Mirra! Mirra!” and ‘‘ Mazzan- tinito!” Right across the open space I marched as proud and satisfied as if I be- longed there, straight up to the grand stand where the Mexican flag was flapping over the Jieutenant-governor. Then all together we bowed to His Pantalets and scattered to four sides of the ring. Have you ever been to a bullfight, son? Then you never seen how the matador cakewalks around and gives his cloak to his best girl to hold during the unpleasant- ness. Thatwasmymove. I made acrow- line for the place where Tessie was pouring smiles down at me right behind the rail. I tossed the dry goods up to her, but just as she reached to grab it another cloak bored a hole in the air and landed beside her. I looked around and there was Ortega right behind me staring up at Tessie as sad as a motherless colt. “Get around here pronto,” says I; “this ain’t no time and piace for play acting.” Down from the grand stand there came a femynine giggle, and I knew that Tessie was a-laughing at me. Then I squared my- self, hoping that all eight bulls would come at me to once. A peon shot back the bolt of the bull- pen door and in poured the bull like a bat out of hell. The wind was full of howls and roars, but I didn’t care. Tessie was a-looking at me with her Spanish eyes. The bull, who was a brindle, under-aged little fe‘ler, tried to hook away the barbed rosette they had jabbed into his side by way of injuring his dignity and standing with the community. One minute he jumped sidewise and gamboled and waltzed like a Jambkin, but in another he was choo-chooing along like a carload of

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86 Cosmopolitan Magazine dynamite. If I’d a-been one of your touch-me-lightly bullfighters I’d of got in his way, tossed my scarf over his eyes and waved by-by to the ladies as he passed; but that wasn’t my style of fight. As the little brindle came at me, I swung my scarf riata-fashion. As he roared past, I twisted the loose end of the cloth around his forelegs and brought him down like a trained dromedary in a side-show. The tourists, who didn’t know any more about the game than I did, thought I’d done fine and yelled “Bully!” and “Good for you!” but the Mexican population was hotter than a rattler’s nest and hooted and hissed. The bull hobbled up, looking indignant and sur- prised, tore the rag from around his legs and started off lickety-breakfast down the ring with the toreadors scattering like chickens on all sides. When the dust cleared away the bull was standing in the middle of the ring digging dirt, while the Mexican population pointed at me and set up a coyote concert. It seemed that I done something ungentlemanly to the bull and owed him an apology. Then it was Ortega’s turn. You’ve seen the holy way a little boy tiptoes up to head of the spelling class after the other kid has spelled ‘‘pneumonia” like “New York?” Well, that was Ortega all over as he sash- ayed to within jumping distance of the bull, made a few watch-me-ladies grapevines with his scarf, and waited. The bull sniffed the zephyrs for a minute, then down goes his head. On he comes, while Ortega drops his rag and scoots across the ring with the bull hooking at his heels. Pedro walloped him over the flank as he passed, then quick as a lizard Mr. Toro turned and chased the little greaser till he vaulted over a guard and out of the way. “Bravo toro! bravo toro!” yelled the crowd, and a tourist from Kansas hollered, “Bray-vo! bray-vo!” But the bull wasn’t hunting for no more trouble. He stood to one side of the ring and threw dust over his back, tired and disgusted with the whole show. The fight was beginning to look like a Sunday-school picnic when the crowd yelled “Banderilla! banderilla!” Then Juan rushed up and put a couple of those decorated harpoons in my hands. “Are these to jab or to throw? Search me,” I says to myself. I was a-going to ask Ortega about it when I seen him tossing a sort of superior smile over my way. Then -across the ring. I decided to play it alone. I got in the road of the bull, and as he came at me I thought of a few of the mean things I’d did and wished I’d never left the old home farm. If I’d stood another minute I’d of gone up like a wet sack, I guess, but when the bull was within two gallops of me I just threw. the banderillas in his general direction and run like a Zuni. I reckon I must of struck him some- where, for the band ripped out a tune and a thick-set lady chucked me a bunch of geraniums as I passed. When I got a breathing-spell I looked up at Tessie, proud like a lion, but she was smiling over to Ortega, who was crow-hop- ping along, ready to take his pop at the shooting-gallery. By this time the bull, full of banderillas, was humping round and round the ring as enthusiastic as a pointer’ pup in front of an oyster can. Pedro flagged him with his scarf, and the bull took after Ortega, who was holding his jab- stickers so light and easy you’d thought they were a knife and fork, He was the same as the rest of your greaser fighters— thought more of the circus than of the scrap. That failing’s what almost done for him that day. He stood on one leg like a bareback rider, made a fancy jab at the bull as he passed, missed his feet and fell right under those stamping, gallopading hoofs. I don’t know how I done it, but before the bull could turn I had planted my heel behind his ear so forcible and earnest that it left a regular Man Friday footprint and he rolled up his eyes. In another second I had grabbed Ortega by the left hind leg and pulled him out of danger halfway He gasped like a snap- turtle for a while, then he brushed off his coat and said some words you won’t find in the Spanish dictionary. I’d saved his life, but he didn’t like the way I done it. By this time, Juan had run another brace of harpoons into the bull and he was sprinting hellety-split around the ring. Then the bugler tooted the signal, “Take him out,” and the little two-year-old hiked for the corral looking like a potato stuck full of parlor matches. Ortega still hung up against the side of the ring a-holding his banderillas, while he glared fierce enough to jab ’em between my short ribs. “Young son,” I says, “put away those

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Pelican Smith, Matador 87 weapons. You don’t need ’em. You’rea _ kept saying to myself, while the crowd real imported toreador all plenty all right, but you ain’t no great shakes at scrapping live stock.” Just then the bull-pen door flew open to Jet another prize out of the box. This time it was a fatherly old codger built on the grain - sack style of architec- ture. His prin- cipal points was a bad off eye and a game leg, which added to his spirited ap- pearance. He didn’t seem un- settled much at the kiyipping crowd and the music and the toreadors. Even the barbed ro- sette hanging from his side didn’t disturb him no more than a_ large- sized hossfly. The little Mexi- can swatted him over the rump with his cloak till he bright- ened up to a gentle dog - jog to about ten paces from where I stood. Then hestopped and blinked at me kind of in- quiring - like as if to say, “‘ What kind of a game is this, pard- ner ?”? I stared at him and he stared back at up, Hannibal! Hi up, you old dromedary! and that bull jest swiveled around as if he ** PROMISE ME YOU'LL QUIT BEING A MATADOR” me, and I guess we’d of been doing so yet that’s what it was. if Ortega hadn’t of coaxed him off to one side while the greasers prodded him up a-feeling different. from behind. “That’s him all right,” I hooted and _ yelled. came close up to take a rest I hollers, “‘ Hi next time he 99 was shot and his good eye twinkled like an evening star. Then he sort of smiled and I could ’most hear him say: “How do, old pard? Got a cigar- etter?” It was the friend of my youth, Hanni- bal, the work- bull from the Hanson ranch. For more’n ten years he’d been the pet of the outfit, and the boys used to pack him bread and pieces of cake from the cook-house. We learned him to ride like a horse, and when you’d holler ‘Hi up, Hannibal!” he’d begin graft- ing for grub and ioller you from here to Frisco. I plumb for- got what I was there for. The first I knew I was holding out my hand while Hannibal raised his old pink snout and asked for a sody bis- cuit in a friendly sort of way. It was just sweet and _ touching, I wanted to cry or to shoot somebody, but the audience was One of ’em chirps up and says, “‘Why don’t you bring on an old

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88 Cosmopolitan Magazine cow?” Another inquires, ‘‘Why don’t you fight a setting hen?” while a cow- puncher up on the top row says, “ Ain’t you got a sheep or a billy goat?” The devil began playing with the roots of my hair, and I was a-going to make some personal remarks when I seen Ortega smiling and sneaking up behind Hannibal with a couple of banderillas raised, ready to jab him in the flanks. I ain’t ordi- narily harsh or quick to anger, but in less than a snake-bite I’d drawn the Armored Cruiser out of my jeans and shoved the muzzle into Ortega’s face. “Drop that greaser curl-paper,” I says, “or I'll scatter you all over Lower Cali- fornia!” The gun stared Ortega right out of countenance and he wrinkled up like a yard of muslin. Somebody screamed. The crowd went still as Death Valley on a Sun- day afternoon. “Pelican Smith!” said a femynine voice above my head, speaking soft and terrible. I looked up and seen Tessie leaning over the railing with Spanish murder spitting from-her eyes and her teeth clenched to bite. “Pelican, you coward,” says she, ‘you fool, you’ve spoiled the fight!” I might have said something polite and appropriate, but there was excitement in another part of the ring. I heard feet peg- ging up to the governor’s box, and in butted a hoop-legged feller with gilt whisk- ers followed by a flock of uniformed rurales. I knew it was Heintz, the secret service agent, and I didn’t need a spyglass to see my finish. When he flashed a paper on the lieutenant-governor and_ began sabe-talking in pigeon Spanish, I knew he had a mortgage on my life and was going to foreclose. Then Alvarado Adams acted like the yellow Mex that he is. He whis- pered something to the governor and pointed to me. I threw down my cloak. I rested my gun hand on Hannibal’s back and made the only public speech of my life. “Alvarado Adams,” I says, “‘you’re half greaser and that half’s heel-biter. You’re giving me away to His Whiskers because you owe me two hundred for fighting your tame cattle. And you, Bow-leg Heintz, are trying to hobble me for selling the same contraband cigars you’re carrying into the States duty free every steamer that sails. Barring the ladies and tourists here, there are only two white men in this circus at present and that’s me and the bull. The rest of you can go chase yourselves,” I says, and vaulted.onto Hannibal’s back. I kicked him up and we made for the bull-pen door, which the peon opened at the point of my killing-iron. We shot through the gate like ‘hell on stilts and right into the midst of the “eight wild bulls,” which scattered to give us room. In half a whisper I was off Hannibal, over the fence and into the saddle of the first horse I seen. It was Old Man Adams’s white mare, but I didn’t stop to think about property rights. I whacked her up with my hat, and she was jumping into nowhere, when I heard Tessie calling to me from the top benches. She leaned over the fence, pale as salt, waving the velvet cloak I had give her. She rolled it up into a little ball and tossed it right under the mare’s feet. It took two seconds to throw my hooks onto the cloth, then I was off like a rocket for a ravine a hundred yards to the west. I could hear the Mexicans sacramento-ing and caramha- ing in my wake. A mounted rurale came swinging around the inclosure. ‘‘ War-r-r- r-r-r”’ went a bullet close to my ear, and I turned long enough to shoot the paisano’s horse down under him. In a hop-skip-and-a-jump I was paddling down an arroyo, through a sponge full of bad water-cuts where the Mexican army might hunt for me half a year. By sun- down I’d worked a couple of miles further down the ravine into an open willow gulch within a stiff'hour’s sprint of the Hanson ranch. And then I stopped and took a look at myself. That dinky little blue plush cloak was still hanging to my arm where I had caught it. I shook it out and seen a rag of white paper pinned to the lining. ‘There were two words wrote on it —just “You win,” that’s all. My circus clothes were torn to ribbons by the brush, my hands were bleeding and the ’dobe dust was sticking to me like poison, but I wasn’t sore and I wasn’t tired. That night I rode into the Hanson ranch singing to the moon as happy as a nigger in pullet season. For two weeks I was star boarder and head prisoner under Bud Hanson, who was turning over Lower California and spend- ing five hundred dollars a day to save my 6 OO yee SAAT — CERRINA ma Bn en Si ee vit

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NI em ote ne ‘ : j saints have prayed. fool neck. Bud was aces with the Diaz government, but it was a long wait for orders to come up from the City to turn me loose. Meanwhile the posses came piling in at the rate of one a day looking for your uncle. First it was a padrone with a load of greasers; then it was an officer and six rurales; then came a mes- sage from the lieutenant-governor, and finally His Pantalets himself. Each one of these got a little remembrance from Bud according to his rank and station. It must of cost him a long, rich roll, but he never showed by sign or token that I was anything but a friendly visitor. ““There’s a feller to see you,” said Bud, one day, pointing with his buggy-whip: to the pepper-grove out back of the house. The Vanity of oO Big Houses &g “Who is he?” asks I, kind of terv- ous, as I shifted my gun to the front. “You won’t need any artillery,” he says, “because it’s all settled with the Mexicans.” I went out to the pepper-grove feeling pleasanter than I had for some days. Alvarado’s white mare was hitched to one of the trunks, but the saddle was empty. Further in among the leaves I could see a patch of blue dress, and a minute later I was holding Tessie tight and true. “Pelican,” she says, shaking as if her heart would break, ‘‘ Pelican, promise me you'll quit being a matador—you’re too good for it.” And Bud Hanson always declares that he could hear us laughing clear up to the ranch-house. The Vanity of Big Houses BY JOHN BURROUGHS as the vanity of building a big house unless the family is big, or bids fair to be big. The only big things a small R are bi wants about a house are big windows, big doors sy and a big fireplace, yes, and a q big attic. In the attic you can put the ae as worn-out things and the furniture that has become unfashionable, but which is dear to you because your friends have sat in the chairs, or have eaten from the tables. In the attic you can be a child again and see the wasps build their nests, the spiders weave their webs, and hear the rain upon the roof. Who would not rather havea peep into the attics of the country than into the parlors? How much history and tradition, how much humor and pathos in the one, and how much sham and vanity in the other. And if the accounts were to be balanced, how much more has the attic done for the race than the parlor or the drawing-room! In the attic philosophers have meditated, poets have dreamed, wits have scribbled, Was ever a serious or profound word spoken in a parlor? Prob- ably so when serious and profound men have been caught there, but for the most part when in the parlor we are in the parlor mood, and concerned only about the com- pliments and the superfluities -of life. A man can fill and warm a cabin, he is not swallowed up by it; he can make it a part of himself—he can make it fit him like his old shoes, and be as expressive of his daily life. But the moment he goes beyond the sim- plest structure—plain undisguised wood or stone—and begins to build for looks, for po- sition, or from the pride of a full purse, that moment there is danger that the gentler divinities will forsake him, that the quiet, non-assertive, open-air standards will be outraged, and the discordant, the meretri- cious, will take the place of the humble, the harmonious, and the assimilative. Not always do these results follow; I am only indicating the danger. Wealth sometimes succeeds i in building a real home —a structure that is not an outrage upon the world of nature without, nor upon the human heart within. But the danger is as I have indicated— that in seeking the fine we will miss the homely and the homelike, that in indulging our vanity we starve our hearts, that in mul- tiplying our possessions we diminish our comforts.

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THE REMAINS OF PAUL JONES LEAVING PARIS FOR THE UNITED STATES Story of Paul Jones BY ALFRED HENRY LEWIS XXIV IN THE RUE TOURNON ND now dawn many days of love and peace and plenty 333 for Admiral Paul Jones— days passed in the midst of friends—glad days made sumptuous by a_ beautiful woman, a king’s daughter, crowned with a wealth of red-gold hair. He has his ; business too, and embarks in speculation, wherein he shows himself as much a sailor of finance as of the sea. The imperial Catherine refuses to I>se him; but pays to the last like an empress, bidding him prolong his vacation while he will. He grows rich. He has twelve thousand pounds in the bank, while in PIV/Ke America, Holland, Denmark, Belgium and England his interests flourish. He sells his plantation by the Rappahannock for twenty-five hundred dollars—less than a dollar an acre; for he says that he has no more heart to own slaves, and the plan- tation may not be worked without them. It is jocund, blooming ‘ May—May, 1790. The little happy cottage in the Rue Vivienne grows small; neither is it mag- nificent enough for his Aimée, of whom each day he grows more proud and fond. So he removes, bag and baggage, to a mansion in the Rue Tournon. There the rooms are grand, the ceilings tall, the fireplaces hospitably wide. The wide fireplaces will do for winter; just now he swings a hammock in the back garden, which is thick-sown of trees, and made pleasant by a plushy green carpet of grass. Here he lolls, and reads [AuTHOR’s NoTE.—The critics who find fault with the historical accuracy of the marriage of Paul Jones, as related in an earlier instalment of these memoirs, should enlarge their_understanding of the subject by a study of the records in France. ] go ee hea

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ei

and receives his: friends. For the careful Aimée counsels rest, and much staying at home; because, when all is said, he is a long shot from a hale man, having been broken with fever in the West Indies, and in nowise restored by the mists and the miasmas of the Dnieper marshes. Through the summer the back garden is filled with chairs, and the chairs are filled by friends. In the autumn, and later when winter descends with its frosts, the chairs and the incumbent friends gather in a great semicircle about the wide flame- filled crackling fireplaces. There: be times when the wine passes, and the freighted mahogany sideboards discover that they have destinies beyond the ornamental. French politics first bubbles and then -boils; Paris is split by faction. Mirabeau controls the Assembly, and Lafayette has the army under his hand—a weak, vacil- lating hand! These two are of the Mod- erates. Admiral Paul Jones, coolly neutral in what sentiments go shaking the hour, has admirers in all the parties. They come to see him, and talk with him, and drink his wines in the shade of the back garden, or by the opulent fireplaces. Robespierre HOUSE IN PARIS BENEATH WHICH THE BODY OF PAUL JONES WAS FOUND

Story of Paul Jones 91 and Danton, as well as Mirabeau and Lafayette, are there. Also, Bertrand Bartre, who boasts that he is not French but Iberian, one whose forebears came in with Hannibal. Later, Barére will preach an open-air sermon on the life and deeds of Admiral Paul Jones. Just now in the Assembly he makes ferocious speeches, garnished of savage expletives picked from the language of the Basques. Warmest among friends of Admiral Paul Jones are the Thetford corset-maker, ‘Tom Paine, with his encarmined nose and love of freedom, and Gouverneur Morris, who has succeeded Mr. Jefferson as America’s minister to France. The pair are with him every day at 42 Rue Tournon; and because all three like politics, and no two of them share the same views, dispute is deep and long. <Aimée of the red-gold hair takes no part in these discussions, but sits watching her Paul with eyes of adoration, directing the servants from time to time, with a motion of the hand, to have a care that the debaters do not voice their beliefs over empty glasses. Admiral Paul Jones, while a republican, gives his sympathies to the king—in whom there is much weakness, but no evil.

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92 Cosmopolitan Magazine “They must not kill the king,” says he. The Assembly has just crushed out the court at Versailles. ‘“‘And why not?” demands Tom Paine, whose bosom distills bitterness along with his republicanism, and who holds there are no good kings save dead kings. ‘Has France no Cromwell? We are both born Englishmen, Paul, and our own people, ere this, have killed a king.” “Tom,” cries Admiral Paul Jones, heatedly, ‘“‘Cromwell and England should not be cited as precedents here. King Louis is no Charles, for one thing; and as for Cromwell, there isn’t the raw ma- terial in all France to make a Cromwell.” Gouverneur Morris, at this, says noth- ing, but sips his wine, remembering that, as the minister of a foreign nation, he should bear no part in French politics, either for or against the king. The Parisian rabble insults the king, and Lafayette, in command of the military about the Tuileries, sadly lacks in direction and decision. Then comes the ‘Day of Daggers’; the poor king, advised by the irresolute Lafayette, yields to the mob, and the assembled notables are disarmed. The anger of Admiral Paul Jones is extreme. He breaks forth to his friend, Tom Paine: ‘“‘Up to this time, I’ve been able to find reasons for the king’s gentleness; but to-day’s action was not gentle, it was weak. I pity the man, beset as he is by situations to which he is unequal. Lafayette cannot long restrain the sinister forces that con- front him. He has neither the head nor the heart for it. This is a time for grape- shot. I only wish that I might be in com- mand of those thirty cannon parked about the palace, and have with me, even for a day, my old war-dogs of the Ranger and the Richard. Believe me, I should offer the mob convincing reasons in support of conservatism and justice; I should teach it forbearance at the muzzles of my guns.” ‘“But the rabble might in its turn teach you,” retorts Tom Paine, with a republican grin. “Bah!” he exclaims, snapping con- temptuous fingers. ‘‘They of the mob are but sheep masquerading as tigers. One whiff of grapeshot, and they would disappear.”’ Then he continues, thought- fully: “‘ Their saddest trait is their levity. They are ridiculous even in their patriot- ism. Their emblems, representative of the grand sentiments they profess, are as childish as the language in which they proclaim them is fantastic. There is the red cap! Borrowed from the gutters, they make it the symbol of sovereignty! As though a ship were better for being rendered keel up.” Mirabeau, with his lion’s face, comes in. He is in a fury, and declares that Lafayette is no more than a _ practicing hypocrite, in his pretenses of attachment to the king. “Hypocrisy!” cries Mirabeau. ‘That at least is a lesson in the school of liberty which he never learned from Washingten.” Others of the Moderates arrive, and join in the conversation. “You must understand, gentlemen,” observes Admiral Paul Jones warmly, “that I in my time have fought eight years for liberty. But I did not fight with the decrees of blood-mad Assemblies, or the plots and cabals of secret clubs.” Those present beam tolerantly; for the mighty Paul is a person of many privileges, and the one man in France who may safely speak his mind. ‘“You do not deeply respect the Assem- bly?” remarks Mirabeau, with a sour smile. “The Assembly?” he returns. ‘What is it? A few who talk all the time, and a great many who applaud or hiss! Every- thing about it is theatrical. It struggles for epigram, not principle; the members would sooner say a smart thing than save France.” Paris is a scene of turmoil and uproar and tumult. To keep his mind aloof from that strife which surrounds him, and into which he feels impelled to plunge, Ad- miral Paul Jones puts in hours with his secretary, Bendéit-André, dictating his jour- nals. Then business calls him to Lon- don, where he is much celebrated by the Whigs. He hobnobs with Fox and Sheri- dan, and Walpole carries him away to Strawberry Hill. He is with Walpole, when word is brought that Mirabeau is dead. “What will be the effect in Paris?” asks Walpole. ‘““What will be the effect? It will un- chain the worst elements. The Assembly will now go to every red extreme. While Mirabeau lived, that strange concourse if REC ee RR... Minne aees ters er eenenNNREEE: Fes

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; NG Rh ERIN a ag of evil spirits had a master. He is gone; the animals are without a keeper.” Admiral Paul Jones returns to Paris, and finds a letter from Mr. Jefferson, now secretary of state. Mr. Jefferson asks him to discover how far Europe will codperate in a move against the Barbary States and to crush out piracy in the Mediterranean. Also, he explains that President Washing ton will want the services of Admiral Paul Jones, when he sends an expedition against the Barbarys. While he is reading Mr. Jefferson’s let- Story of Paul Jones 93 the French navy, pointing out that its present inefficiency arises from the fact that for centuries it has been kept as the feeding-ground of a voracious aristocracy which has made of it a mere asylum for impoverished second sons and other noble incapables. He sends a copy of his treatise to Walpole, who writes him a letter. ‘My dear Jones,” says he of Strawberry Hill, ‘‘let France go. Either return home to America, and rest upon your laurels, or come over to England where even those who do not love you admire you. You o~r BPO RN Ty, * or AWAITING EMBARKATION AT CHERBOURG ter, a deputation from the Assembly waits on him, and sets forth informally that it is the present French purpose to reorganize the navy, and call him, Admiral Paul Jones, to the command. ‘“Would you accept?” asks the depu- tation. “It would be, gentlemen,” he returns, “the part of prudence, and I think of modesty, to defer crossing that bridge till I come to it.” When the deputation goes away, he calls Benéit-André, and sits long into the night, dictating a treatise on reforming have fought under two flags; isn’t that enough? I take your pamphlet to be simply a bid for a commission in the new French navy; and, much as I love and admire you, I hope it will fail. It will be better so. Your laurels won off Flam- boro’ Head will else be turned to cypress when, as a French admiral, you become the target of British broadsides, with none of your stout old Yankee tars to stand by and man your guns.” The winter is coming to an end—the winter of 1791 and ’2, and the grass of spring is starting. Admiral Paul Jones

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94 Cosmopolitan Magazine receives a letter from President Wash- ington, who speaks of the Barbary States, and urges him to give up his commission in the Russian service. There have been two men whose requests with him were ever final—Franklin and Washington. He does not hesitate, but forwards his resig- nation to Catherine. She will not ac- cept, but puts forward old Suwarrow. “Do not, my good brother,” writes the old soldier—‘do not let any siren entice you from the service of the empress. Your Frenchmen are preparing a stew of mischief that must soon keep all Western Europe busy to save themselves. That will be Russia’s time. We shall then have a free hand with the Turk. Our command of the Black Sea is safe. Since vou were there we have built nine new ships of the line and six stout frigates. You shall have them all. Also, I can now protect you from court intrigues, which I could not do before, Courtiers, since Ismail, no longer trouble me; I brush them away like flies. In a new Turkish com- mand, I would be generalissimo by land and sea; you would be responsible to no one but me—a situation which, I flatter myself, would not be intolerable to you. Now, my good brother, the empress has a copy of this letter, and agrees with all I say. Make no entanglements in the West; but return to your old Suwarrow as soon as vou can, and we shall discuss plans.” Old Suwarrow’s letter fails of its hoped for effect. Admiral Paul Jones gets out President Washington’s letter, and reads it again. Then he again sends a polite but peremptory resignation to Catherine, and ends forever with the Russians. “But, mon Paul,” says Aimée, who looks over his shoulder, ‘‘what a compli- ment! England, France, Russia, America —the whole world calls fer you at once! And the answer to all”—here a kiss—‘is that you shall stay here with your Aimée, until she coaxes back your health.” XXV THE LAST DAYS Aimée is right; Admiral Paul Jones, never his old sound self since that last cruise in the West Indies, is ill. Gourgaud says it is his lungs, and commands him to take care of himself. He obeys by sticking close to the red-gold Aimée, and the pleasant house in the Rue Tournon, with its fireplaces in the winter and its tree-shaded back garden in the summer— summer, when the hammock is swung. Now « stream of visitors pours in upon him, among the rest Colonel Blackden of the Continental army, and Major Beau- poil who was at Yorktown. Even the poor king, in the midst of his troubles, sends to ask after the health of the “ Cheva- lier Jones.” At odd hours, when visitors de not over- run him, he continues to dictate his jour- nal to Bendit-André, while Aimée gently swings his hammock with her slim white hand. Itisa hazy Julyday; the drone of pillaging bees, busy among the flowers, fills the back garden in the Rue Tournon. It is one of Admiral Paul Jones’s good days, and, a-swing in his hammock, he chats with Major Beaupoil about a dinner at which, three days before, he was the guest of Jacobin honor. “Tt was at the Café Timon,’ he says, “a favorite rendezvous of the Jacobins. Believe me, Major, while I cannot speak in highest terms of the Jacobins, I can of the Café Timon. One day I hone to take you there.” Gouverneur Morris is announced. He tells Admiral Paul Jones that he has ad- vices from Mr. Jefferson, to the effect that Mr. Pinckney has been selected minister to St. James, and is on his way across. “What to my mind,” concludes Mr. Morris, “‘is of most consequence, he bears with him from President Washington your commission as an admiral in the American navy. You are to be ready, you will note, to proceed against those Barbary robbers when the squadron arrives.” ‘“T shall not alone be ready,” he returns, “T shall be delighted to proceed.” He springs from the hammock and takes a quick turn up and down the garden. The prospect of a brush with the swarthy freebooters of the Mediterranean ani- mates him mightily. Other visitors are announced. Barére and Lafayette and Carnot and Cambon and Verginaud and Marron and Collot and Billaud and Kersaint and Gensonné and Barbaroux and Louvet arrive. Laugh- ter and jest and conversation become the order of the afternoon; for all are glad, and

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a ee ee | ETC... ~SRRRaaesa eR RNR TRNNR RRR RHEE EER ae argue from his high spirits the soon return to health of Admiral Paul Jones. There was never a more cheerful hour in the Rue Tournon back garden. Corks are drawn and glasses clink. The talk leaves politics for religion. “My church,” observes Admiral Paul Jones—“‘my church has been the ocean, Copyright, 1905, by Underwood & Underwood Story of Paul Jones 95 “There!” he concludes, “I call that stanza a complete boxing of the religious compass.” Gourgaud looks in professionally, and is inclined to take a solemn view of his patient’s state. He rebukes him for run- ning about the garden among his guests. “You should not have permitted it,” THE BODY OF PAUL JONES REACHES AMERICAN SOIL, ANNAPOLIS my preacher the north star, my choir the winds singing in the ship’s rigging.” **And your faith?” asks Major Beaupoil. “You may find it, my dear Major,” he returns, “in Pope’s ‘Universal Prayer’: “*Teach me to feel another’s woe, To hide the faults I see; That mercy I to others show, Such mercy show to me,’ says Gourgaud, admonishing Aimée with upraised finger. “But he refused to be restrained!” re- turns Aimée, ruefully. “Gourgaud!” the patient breaks forth cheerily, “‘you know the aphorism: At forty every man is either a fool or a doctor + Now I am over forty; and, as a fellow- practitioner, I promise you that our pa-

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96 Cosmopolitan Magazine tient, Paul Jones, is out of danger and on the mend.” Then, gayly: ‘Come, Gour- gaud, don’t croak! Take a glass of wine; you frighten Aimée with your long looks!” Gourgaud takes his wine; but his looks are quite as long as before. Abruptly, and apropos of nothing, Ad- miral Paul Jones decides to make his will. “Your will!” protests Gouverneur Mor- ris, somewhat aghast. ‘But you haven’t been in such health for months!” ‘**Not on 2ccount of my health,” he ex- plains, ‘“but because of those Barbary pirates.” Notaries are brought in by Berdéit-André, and the will is drawn... The gallant testa- tor is for giving all to his Aimée. “The house you already have,” says he, “and also an annuity. Now I leave you the rest; and Beaupoil shall be executor, with Morris as a witness. There; it is ar- ranged!” But it is not arranged. The red-gold Aimée points out that he has certain nieces and nephews in Scotland and Vir- ginia; they must not be forgotten. He yields to reasonable amendments. Then the will is sealed and signed. “Tt has eased my mind,” he says, giving the document into the hands of Major Beaupoil for safe keeping—‘‘it has eased my mind more than I supposed possible.” Then, with a look at Aimée: ‘There will be enough, petite, to take care of you.” Aimée remembers the sword of honor, given him long ago by King Louis for that victory over the Sera pis. “You always declared it should go to your friend Dale,” she says. “So I do still!” he returns. Aimée brings the sword. She presses the gilt scabbard to her lips; then she puts it in the hands of her Paul. He half draws the blade and considers it with an eye of pride. “You see this sword?” he remarks to Gouverneur Morris. ‘‘Should I die, carry it with my love to Dick Dale.” It is nine o’clock; night has fallen. The many friends have gone their homeward ways. The back parlor of the house in the Rue Tournon is peaceful and still. Admiral Paul Jones sits in his cushioned easy-chair, reading a volume of Voltaire. Now and then he addresses to Aimée some comment of agreement or disagree- (The ment with his lively author, Aimée cffers no counter comments, but beams accord with everything; for her heart is lighter and her bosom more tranquil than for many a day, and she basks in tne sunshine of new hopes for the restoration of her Paul. Some duty of the house calls Aimée. She leaves her Paul—the lamplight shin- ing on the pages of the book, his loved face in the shadow. She pauses for a mcment at the door, her deep soft eyes full of wor- ship. Aimée is on the stair returning. A dull ominous sound reaches her ears. Her heart grows cold; alarm seizes her by the throat as though a hand clutched ker. She knows by some instinct that the end has come, and her Paul lies dead or dying. She can neither move nor cry out. Presently she regains partial com mand of herself. With quaking limbs she mounts the stair. The door of the back drawing-room stands open. The lamp still burns, but its radiance no longer lights the pages of the philosopher of Ferney. They fall across the motionless body of her Paul. He lies with head and shoulder resting on a couch, which he was trying to reach when stricken down. Aimée gazes for one horror-smitten mo- ment. Then, with a wailing sob as from the depths of her soul, she throws her arms about him. She covers the cold marble lips with kisses—those loving, dauntless lips!—while her thick _ hair, breaking from its combs, hides as with a veil of red and gold the white, dead face from the rays of the prying lamp. Thirteen years go by, Napoleon is reading those gloomy dispatches which tell of Trafalgar. Crushing the paper in his hand, he paces the floor, his pale, moody face swept by gusty emotions of pain and anger and disappointment. “Berthier, how old was Paul Jones when he died ?” ‘*Forty-five, sire.” There comes a gloom-filled silence; the gray, brooding eyes seek the floor in thought. Then the pacing to and fro is resumed, that hateful dispatch still clutched fast in the nervous fingers. ‘“Berthier, Paul Jones did not fulfill his destiny.” End) Vee ren, SIT

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i ue Ramee ot ad, Cas pepete ss es TON CLOSE PLAY ON THE MEADOWBROOK FIELD Polo Made Plain BY J. J, McCNAMARA (ITHOUT going too deep in- to the theory of the sport as it is played in the United States, a few simple facts ¥{ giving an outline of what a f polo game is like may be @ instructive. ¥ In general appearance a polo field is not unlike a col- lege football gridiron, only in polo the field is considerably longer and much wider, the regulation dimensions being nine hundred by four hundred and fifty feet. The goal posts are similarly located as in football, being placed at either end of the ground, and are twenty-four feet apart and at least ten feet in height. Instead of the solid wooden uprights used in football, the polo goal posts are made of papier-maché and are so adjusted that they will break easily if the ponies should happen to run into them during a scrim- mage. The playing-field should be as smooth and as level as a putting-green, and it is enclosed with ten-inch boards along the side lines to keep the ball from going out of bounds. The center of the field, where the teams line up for action, is clearly defined by a white chalk-mark, and this practically completes the ground appointments. The ball used in polo is painted white, and is made of light wood, three and one- eighth inches in diameter, and must not weigh over five ounces. The playing-time of a game is four pe- riods of fifteen minutes each, with a two- minute breathing-spell between goals and a seven-minute rest between periods, and while the actual playing-time is one hour,

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98 Cosmopolitan Magazine the average \ength of a polo match is about two hours. The mallets used in driving the ball vary in length from forty-eight to fifty-three inches, according to individual requirements. The stick-end is made of slender and flexible cane, securely fastened into a cigar-shaped head. As in other lines of sport, there are offi- cials to supervise the game, and in, polo they consist of a referee who is mounted and follows the progress of the ball, a timer, a scorer and two goal keepers whose duty it is to assist the referee in deciding when a goal has been made. Instead of a kick-off, as in football, the polo game is begun by both teams forming in parallel lines in the middle of the field, and when they are ready the ball is “‘thrown in” between the rival sides. A score is made by hitting the ball through the op- ponent’s goal, and the side scoring the largest number of goals wins the match. - The other points that affect the score are penalties. A safety is penalized at a quarter of a goal, and a foul at one-half goal. These penalties are deducted from the score of the team against which they were allowed. A safety is made in exactly the same way as in football, by having a player take the ball behind his own goal line in order to prevent the other side from scor- ing. A foul is committed by bumping at an angle dangerous to player or pony, zigzagging in front of a galloping player, tripping or risking a trip by an opponent’: pony. When players are riding in oppo- site directions, the ball must be left on the right hand, or off side, of each player. In riding off a player may give his opponent the shoulder, but it is forbidden to touch an adversary, his pony or his mallet, or to strike the ball when dismounted. In case of an accident to a player, or for any other reasonable cause, the referce may stop the game and the time so lost is not counted. When the play is resumed, the ball is thrown in between the players, who are lined up at the point at which the game was stopped. If the game is stopped on account of a foul, play must be resumed where the foul occurred. A new rule, but one which is not strictly enforced, is that it is a foul to strike one’s own pony across the flanks with a mallet. Not only is this action cruel to the pony, but the player who indulges in the practice is quite likely to hit an opponent who may be riding alongside. When the time-limit of a period has ex pired, the game must continue until the ball goes out of bounds or a goal is made. The overtime is then deducted from the succeeding period. In the event of a tie at the end of the last period, the teams stop playing at the whistle, and after the usual rest an extra period is begun and the game is continued until either side is credited with a goal or a fraction of a goal. When the ball goes out of bounds at the sides, it must be thrown in by the referee from the point where it went out. When the ball goes out at the ends, the defending side is entitled to a knock-out from the point where the ball crossed the line. When the player having the knock-out causes an unnecessary delay, the referee may throw TRAINING PONIES st patna

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CAPTAINS OF a ball on the field and call play. No op ponent can come within fifty feet of the player having the knock-out, until the ball has been hit. A player requiring a new mallet during a game must ride to the side lines to procure it, and no one is allowed to bring a stick on the field. The game may be stopped when a pony’s gear is so disarranged that it is assumed danger- ous to the rider, but a lost stirrup or a broken martingale does not come under this head. In order to have players meet in tour- nament games on even terms, the pole association originated the scheme of handi- capping the members of the different clubs, and the better the player, the larger the handicap. The players are handicapped at so many goals according to their re- spective ability, and in a match game, one team is allowed the difference between its aggregate handicap and that of an opposing team. In the championship matches, how- ever, all of the competing teams play with- out handicaps. While there has been a marked improve- ment in the scientific side of the game of CONTENDING TEAMS BEFORE THE UMPIRE polo in the past thirty vears, this depart ment has not progressed in the same ratio that the sport has attained in the increase of polo organizations and the rapid growth in number of registered players. The one great drawback to the develop ment of scientific polo in this country is that the majority of the clubs do not give sufficient time to systematic practice in individual position play, without which teamwork is impossible. It is only by steady and persistent practice that a player can secure perfect command of his strokes, and to acquire thorough mastery over one’s ponies requires a great deal of attention in addition to what may be attained in the so-called practice matches. As a rule, the average polo player never uses his mounts except when there is an opportunity to get into a line-up. As a result, the practice games oftentimes result in nothing more than an aimless afternoon’s riding in a general scrimmage after the ball, with but little advancement resulting to the indi- vidual players in personal skill or collect- ively in teamwork. It is hardly to the credit of American 9

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100 Cosmopolitan Magazine polo that the quality of the game seen at the different tournaments has not improved during the past four years. During this period, with one or two exceptions, the championship matches for the Astor gold cup have been complete walk-overs for the winning team. ‘The defensive possibilities of the game have been almost wholly sacrificed in favor of the offensive, apd this in a measure accounts for the many one- HARRY PAYNE WHITNEY ON THE MEADOW- BROOK FIELD sided matches when one team is a bit stronger than the other. In a match game of polo, the players line up in positions known as No. 1, No. 2, No. 3 and back. The No. 1 is supposed to lead the interference, but the main attack is delivered by No. 2 and No. 3, while the back guards the rear and acts as a possible reénforcement. Each player has specific duties to per- form, and one of the most important is to take care of his individual opponent. It not infrequently happens in a game that one player on either side shines above the rest as a star performer, and it is seldom taken into consideration that this star player is allowed to gallop scot-free while his individual opponent is waiting for op- portunities to get on the ball and seldom secures the possession of it. Every time a player. leaves his own station, he gives the other side an opening just as much as if his team was playing with three men instead of four. To demonstrate this point more clearly, there is just as much sense in a No. 1 hanging back in his No. 2’s territory as there would be in a baseball player leaving first base uncovered when another man on his side is in the act of attempting to throw the runner out. This failure to stick to individual positions throws a team out of gear, and this is what happens when the players on one team are all bunched up. Ina well-drilled team there should be a thorough understanding in regard to interchange of positions, and when this is accomplished no spot is left unprotected and the result is team play. There are times when it is perfectly proper for a man to leave his position, but this should be done only when there is another man ready to fill up the gap. A system of playing is just as essential in polo as it is in football or baseball, or in any other game where a number of players go to make up a side. It is all very well to have sure hitters with accurate direction, but no one man can be expected to be successful against four. Yet this is what many players attempt to do. In the old days end runs were con- sidered the proper thing by star players, and a successful play of this kind always brought forth praise fromthe gallery, but now the system of successful ground- gaining is riding off and passing the ball straight to goal. Unless a team has players that will do these two things, it is practically certain of defeat when it meets a team of its own caliber. There have been individuals who worked together in this way, notably Messrs. Keene and Cowdin. The Water- bury brothers also have a perfect under- standing with each other, and on a smooth field their strokes in passing the ball from one to the other come off like clockwork.

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Another thing that is absolutely necessary in polo is condition. There are some men who do not live up to strict training, buta man should keep himself in good trim, as every point counts, and no mat- ter how brilliant a man may be, he will not last in a hard- riding polo match any more than he would in a steeple- chase race or a run after the hounds unless his wind is all right and he is down to proper weight. Polo calls for en- durance, which is impossible without condition, and the team that can go through three periods and have a bit up its sleeve for the finish often wins Polo Made Plain } A MATCH AT CEDARHURSI1 think of his pony and his seat when he is making a stroke is always at a disadvantage. The pony and rider should work in unison, from one superior in other respects. A and one should be as fearless as the other. polo player should be a first-class horse- man, and the riding should come to him treasured as second nature, as the man who has to’ ‘‘America JAY GOULD, ONE OF THE YOUNGEST OF AMERICAN PLAYERS In the realm of sport, one of the most possessions in England is the Cup,” emblematic of inter- national supremacy in_ polo. This trophy was won by the Englishmen at Newport, Rhode Island, in 1886, when polo was in its infancy in the United States, and it has been played for twice since then in England, but the American teams were decisively defeated on both oc- casions. There was some talk of an- other international tournament last year, but the proposed trip was abandoned after a series of trial matches at Meadowbrook between teams composed of some of the players who in- tended to go across. With polo under existing conditions, the prospects of winning the America Cup are not any too bright as, in addition to the unpreparedness of any entry that might be sent across, there are too many other conditions in favor of the Eng-

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102 lishmen to give the Americans an even break at securing it. One step toward equalizing the differ- ence in rules between the two countries was adopted. last spring when the American Polo Association passed a rule permitting the hooking of mallets and in this respect the American game now conforms to the English game. The essential feature in which the games now differ is the off-side rule. It is claimed that the English game is more scientific because no attempt is made to place a premium on individual effort, as the object in view all the time is team play. In the American game, where the player can take the ball whether he is on side or not, the individual has far more freedom to do things than in the English game. It is admitted that the best English teams are superior to our best teams in combina- tion play, and in order to win the cup, the Americans must play on foreign soil, under foreign rules, and will have to meet a quality of polo the like of which has not yet been fully developed over here. We have individual players as good as the best in England, but, unfortunately for American polo, our star players will not work harmoniously together, and until an American team, made up of first-class material, is formed and thoroughly drilled in position play to meet the style of game in vogue in England, there is not much chance of our winning the cup now in possession of the Hurlingham Club. In 1902 there was an organized effort on the part of the American Polo Association to lift the cup, when Messrs. Foxhall Keene, R. L. Agassiz, John E. Cowdin, Lawrence Waterbury and J. M. Waterbury, Jr., went abroad with high hopes of defeating the Englishmen. While these players made a very favorable impression on English polo fields as individual players, they failed to accomplish the specific purpose for which they went abroad, and they won only one out of the three matches played for the cup. In arranging for future matches for the cup, it might not be a bad plan to have either country name its team and sub- stitute in advance of the tournament, and limit the number of players—a point that was overlooked by the Americans in 1902. The Englishmen used six different players in defending the cup, while the Americans called in only one extra man and that was in the final game. In the matter of ponies, Cosmopolitan Magazine it was the general opinion that the Amer- ican mounts were not quit? up to the Eng- lish-bred polo ponies. It must be borne in mind, however, that the ponies played by the members of the Hurlingham team were the pick of England, while the Amer- ican mounts were simply the individual property of the different members who played in the tournament. They were representative ponies, but they were’ not the pick of America. It is claimed that the American polo pony is an accident, and it is true that the type of pony used for polo was never bred for this calling in life, but, possessing the rudi- mentary qualifications, the Texas product was quick to learn the fine points of polo. The breed from which the best polo ponies are selected was established for altogether different purposes. The origin of the polo pony has been the subject of much careful study and research by the Hon. William Anson, of Coleman, Texas. He is an Eng- lishman by birth and is a member of the Rockaway Club of Cedarhurst, Long Island, though he has spent most of his time in this country, in Texas, where he is extensively engaged in the horse business. Polo men are indebted to Mr. Anson for much valuable information regarding the origin of the breed of horses used for polo. Before being educated to the game, the ponies on their native heath were used either for racing or for cow-ponies, two strenuous occupations that made them eligible for “polos.” Many of these Texas ponies show signs of good breeding, and they date back to the cross between thoroughbreds imported from Kentucky and native Texas mares. The infusion of thoroughbred blood was to secure speed for a form of racing at one time very popular in the Southwest, namely straightaway dashes at one-quarter of a mile, hence the name ‘‘quarter-horse.”” The strong point in favor of this pocket edition of a race horse is its ability to sprint; and having the speed which is so essential, the quality of handiness is acquired through the pains- taking course of instruction employed by the reliable polo-pony trainer. The cow- pony has its origin from practically the same source, and while not possessing the extreme speed of the quarter-horse, it is by occupation doing the very things, while being used after cattle, that make it espe- cially adapted for polo. A well-broken

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JOHN COWDIN FOXHALL KEENE NOTED AMERICAN PLAYERS cow-pony is a very clever animal. It is taught to stop in its tracks, to turn sharply, and when well reined is a most useful ani- mal and valuable to its owner. This type of pony is possessed of indomitable courage, and in training it for polo great care must be taken not to exhaust this natural gift, and the mouth and temper of the pony should be preserved unspoiled and unin- jured. Many first-class ponies are spoiled by improper handling, and more good re- sults are obtained through kindness than by the severe methods used by some trainers. Mr. Tappan, one of the most successful trainers in the business, will not employ on his San Antonio ranch a man who will treat a pony harshly. As Mr. Tappan himself puts it, “a man who has a mean streak in him is bound to impart it to the horse placed under his care.” The Texas pony has answered the purposes of polo in a very satisfactory manner, but while some very excellent types are picked up now and then, the average quarter-pony is lacking in two particulars—conforma- tion, and speed with endurance. By this is meant the endurance that enables a pony to keep going in company with thorough- breds, on a ground resembling a plowed field, for ten minutes or more at a stretch. A number of experiments have been tried in the North to improve the breed, but no one has ever stuck to it long enough to secure the desired result. Mr. Anson is a firm believer that the breed as it exists to- day can be materially improved, and with this object in view he is now breeding an imported registered polo pony sire to native Texas pony mares. Two years ago he purchased Rock Salt, a prize-winner at Hurlingham, and as far as appearance is concerned an ideal type of polo pony stallion. Rock Salt has been doing re- markably well in the stud, and if his get 103

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THE LAST ENGLISH CHAMPION TEAM TO PLAY IN THIS COUNTRY should turn out well it will mark a new era in the breeding of high-class polo ponies. There is one thing that mars the beauty of a polo pony, and that is the branding. This custom is universal with all kinds of live stock in Texas and the Southwest, but the time will come when the polo pony will be exempt from having his shoulder or quar- ters seared with a red-hot iron. All that is necessary to bring about this reform is to have the buyers demand unbranded ponies and they will surely get them. The days of the open range, when branding was a necessity, are gone, and every ranchman now has his ranch fenced in and _ horse- stealing is a rare offense. When Foxhall Keene introduced the fashion of having his ponies wear long or pulled tails, the idea was taken up by other players and the bang tails are fast disap- pearing in the polo stables. ROCK SALT, AN ENGLISH PRIZE-WINNING PONY 104 NOREEN ne a eS Ra LE hs oh 2

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eee i it NO AEDES ARE HB 5 ‘The Law of Compensation er Da tin Siete Mortem Sas Tllu tratéd by C. ee Po se OD, I wish this business wuz done! Gimme another drink to steady my nerves “Here; you an’ yer nerves make me good an’ tired. Takea big jolt an’ don’t ask me fer no more. It ain’t good fer a man in this game. An’ I want you to shut up yer beefin’ too. You’ve got to hold up yer end or you won’t cz ish in. Sabe?” There was menace in the final words and the colloquy ceased. The two voices sounded from the shadow of a huge vater tank. Close to one side of it was a railroad track. In every direction, stretching away to the stars, was the desert. Finally the man who had spoken last broke the silence. ‘“‘Gimme some matches.” In a few seconds a tiny flame cut a circle of light in the blackness and threw every object within its radius into bas-relief. Near one of the pillars of the tank squatted two men. The one who held the match was big, rugged, powerfully formed, with matted, black beard, long, unkempt hair and eyes set deep under shaggy brows. His companion was thin and narrow-chested, with smooth, weak, chalky-skinned features and lynx-eyes that were constantly and furtively shifting—the kind that never look one squarely in the face. His hands were pale and puny compared with the tanned, knotted fists beside them. Both men were roughly dressed and across the lap of each lay a Winchester. Between them on the ground were a couple of flour sacks with holes cut in the sides and several feet away lay some gunny sacks, one of them half filled. The man with the beard lit his pipe, carefully tucked the remainder of the matches under his hatband, looked at his watch, then turned to the other. ‘“‘She’s due here in twenty minutes.” He tossed the match away and continued: ‘‘ Now _ better go over this thing again ’cause there don’t want to be nc breaks. When they pull up you get a bead on ’em in the engine. Make ’em both climb up on top o’ the tender with their backs to you an’ their hands up. Then don’t let ’em move. When you see I’ve got the stuff make the engineer get down an’ tell him to pull out fast. That’s all you gottado. Sabe?” ““Ye-es. But s’pose Kelly puts up a scrap? He ain’t goin’ to give over that coin fer the askin’.” “Ton’t you s’pose I’m figgerin’ on what Kelly’s goin’ to do? Course he ain’t goin’ to lay down if there’s a chance to get out uv it. Heain’t that kind uvamessenger. But thestuff we’ve got in this here sack is a pow’rful persuader. He wuz in a Q 3 2?

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106 Cosmopolitan Magazine deal a couple o’ years ago where they blew him up an’ I kinda think when I tell him there’ll be a couple o’ sticks o’ dynamite touched off under his car he’ll come through. If he don’t we’ll turn loose our fireworks. Now don’t lose yer nut or you'll queer the whole game. Sabe?” Both relapsed into silence. The man with the pipe puffed steadily on it; the other stirred and fidgeted uneasily. A / speck of light appeared on the western horizon at the spot where the tracks pointed. Without a word the men adjusted the flour sacks over their heads and flattened themselves into a shallow gully back of the tank. The speck grew rapidly into a glaring, white eye, into a blinding beam and the express slowed up and stopped at the tank. Both rose quickly and advanced. The thin man followed his instructions to the letter and the engineer and fireman obeyed him promptly. They did not see how violently his gun trembled and besides that did not matter much. Sudden death was aimed in their direction; that was enough. Meanwhile the other man ran to the express- car door and knocked on it with his rifle. A voice inside asked what was wanted. “Open the door an’ I'll tell you,” snapped the reply. “Hurry up, too.” ““Who’re you? What d’you want ?”’ demanded the voice. “T want that ten-thousand sack o’ twenties you’re takin’ up the line to the Southern Cross mine. If you don’t give it up I’ve got enough dynamite to blow you an’ yer car into the middle 0’ Death Valley. You chuck that sack out right away or—well, you know how it feels, don’t you?” No answer. For a few seconds he crouched low at one side of the door, his weapon covering it. Then he sprang upright and retreated several paces. ‘‘Look here, you in there,” he yelled! ‘“‘if that stuff ain’t out here when I count ten I’m goin’ to blast it out. One—two—three—four—’ There was a movement in the car. ‘‘ Five—six—seven ° “Hold on, I'll give it up,” interrupted the voice inside. The car door slid open several inches and an arm was thrust forth. A bulging, canvas money sack, stamped “U. S.,” dangled for a moment in the streak of light, then the fingers relaxed and it fell with a clatter. The arm withdrew and the door shut. The man with the gun did not move, but called crisply to his companion, “Let ’em go ahead.” Again the jy thin man played his part. The engineer slid down into the cab, pulled open the throttle and the ponderous train lunged forward with a roar into the desert. “‘Well, I guess I called the turn,” observed the man with the beard. dryly as his companion stumbled up beside him, half- running. ‘Come on now, we gotta get out o’ this. When them wires gets workin’ there’ll be a bunch out here an’ we want plenty o’ start on ’em. Here, you better carry this stuff an’ foller me. Huh! Guess you never packed so much money in yer life, did yer?” A jingle from the sack as the thin man shouldered it made him grip it hard. As he walked he could hear the clink, clink, clink, close to his ear; he could feel the hard, round pieces, dozens of them, shifting and sliding. The sound pleased like music; it tantalized him after a little. His lynx-eyes narrowed to a scowling squint as they peered through the darkness at the 2 A

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AOE OORT SE Seating hee giant, shadowy form striding ahead and a sinister impulse hovered an instant in his mind and was gone. They soon reached the horses and he rolled up the booty in a blanket and strapped it at the back of his saddle before any other plan was suggested. His partner unstaked the animals, inspected the water flasks and said: ‘‘We gotta make that water-hole by sunup ’cause the nags’ll have to get a couple hours’ rest ’fore we can hit fer the moun- tains. ‘They’re pretty tired now an’ we can’t afford to have ‘em peter out in this kind o’ country. Let’s move.” Without further discussion they rode away through the night. In a little while the moon rose, sheening the white, barren desert floor with silver, and they were able to make better time. The thin man repeatedly fingered the bundle behind him. Occasionally he heard the faint clink and his hand lingered. Even through the thickness of blanket he could feel the pieces. He counted them in his mind again and again and the figures thrilled him. Five hundred twenties -gold, bright, yellow gold—ten thousand dollars of it. He began to think of what it might buy. The possibilities seemed limitless, and he reveled in fanciful anticipation. He straight- ened up his narrow, drooping shoulders and drew deep, luxu rious breaths. Ten thousand dollars! The Law of Compensation Ten thousand dollars! The moonlight ravishing fantasies wrought from the fabric of dreams. Extrav- agant visions of the pleasures of wealth crowded into his intoxicated brain and through them all flitted a pair of alluring Spanish eyes. Ten thousand dollars as he rode, his glutted imagination reeled with the delirious madness of money. Suddenly he thought of the man ahead. He recalled their pact, an equal division of the spoils. The recollection aggravated him. Oniy half of the booty was his. Five thousand dollars! It seemed j pared with ten. ‘The figures counted differently; they refused to fill his mind’s eye. He felt a sense of As he brooded it fretted, stung, maddened him and the fleeting Life offered a new outlook. It was no longer the despairing grind and struggle of the under dog. It was a thing of joy and the living of it an ecstasy. His eyes roved half-defiantly over the desert. conjured for him —and Ynez! For miles insignificant com- loss, a mental pain. impulse that made his lynx-eyes squint when he heard first that night the clinking in his ear, became a definite, dominating, resistless purpose. Just as the sun raised its fiery rim above the level of the desert they reached the water-hole. The horses were unsad- dled and staked and the man with the beard made coffee and warmed some beans. He helped himself to both and pushed the remainder toward his companion. ‘The latter ignored it. His lynx-eyes. were watching every move of the other man. He drew his revolver and toyed nervously with it. The acous- tics of the desert are remarkable and so he put the weapon back in its holster. Not until his partner had finished eating did he speak. His voice was velvet and persuasive. “Why don’t you take a little snooze? I don’t feel sleepy an’ rll keep a lookout fer a couple uv hours. Then you can let me turn in fer a while.” Covertly he watched the effect of his proposal. The other man yawned and stretched himself. “> “Well, that doesn’t sound bad,” he replied. ‘“*There ain’t ,

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108 Cosmopolitan Magazine

no chance uv anybody catchin’ up with us yet. Guess I'll —-<@ tear off a little nap. Wake me in two hours.” “Sure.” A mocking smile curled the lips of the thin man as the other relaxed his powerful frame in the shadow ofa rock. Half an hour later the man awake turned over noiselessly to his hands and knees and began to crawl toward the recumbent figure. ‘The traits of the feline were in every movement. His poise and even the slant of his eyes were catlike. A few feet from the sleeper he paused, unsheathed his hunting knife and, like an animal, sprang for the throat. There was no struggle, not an outcry; it was all over too soon for that. He drew back # cowering, yet gazing with fascination at the Thing that now lay in the shadow of the rock. A sickening weakness came over him. He fought it off and tried to laugh, but the awful, primordial silence of the desert seemed to smother the sound in his throat. Then the instinctive human fear of the dead possessed him and he sprang to his feet and ran to the only aes thing in that lifeless place—the horses. His nerve

his spurs.

Za yg deserted him and in a panic of terror he saddled his animal. ZY. Its mate whinnied expectantly; he did not heed it. With fum- bling hands he filled all the water flasks and tied them to his saddle. They made a heavy, unwieldy burden, but his pru- 5 dence had deserted him too. He mounted and felt the blanket behind him. The sack was still there. glance over his shoulder he swore at the horse and dug deep With a frightened Ten miles he pressed the beast at frantic speed and it began to show signs of distress. The sun was well up now and already the air was shimmering over the baked plain of alkali.

L The panting, sweating horse slowed its pace often, but he forced it on with cruel slashes of quirt and spur. Soon the animal failed to respond to punishment and lapsed into a lurching trot, stumbling frequently. Descending the side of a small arroyo it fell to its knees, recovered and struggled on with horse. Then he understood; it was a tardy awakening. He = tore the canteens from their fastenings and poured their precious contents down the animal’s throat. It was too late; in a quarter of an hour the horse ceased breathing. Now the man realized to the full the pitiless truth of the situation. He sat down and tried to think calmly. The problem was simple, terribly simple. He could not go back to the water-hole. Pursuers might reach it any time; besides, the Thing behind the rock was there. Between him and the mountains was twenty miles of scorched, waterless waste. There was one chance in a hundred of his getting across it alive. He knew that. But the primitive instinct of self- preservation was strong in him; the siren song of the money, too, sang in his ears afresh and he determined to take that one chance. One full canteen remained and he drank sparingly from it and slung it over his shoulder. He pulled the sack from its wrapping of blanket and strapped it on his back, then started up the slope. It was like a furnace. From the top of the rise the mountains were visible. Some of the peaks were painful, spasmodic strides. Halfway up the opposite slope = it toppled over on its side, gasping feebly. Stupidly, “dazed, the man stood for a moment watching the exhausted

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step as he plodded on and on. Finally he came to a lone

\ mesquite bush and sank wearily within its scant shadow. His ' shoulders were raw where the straps had sawed into them, and ° he loosed the sack and set it before him. ‘Ten thousand dollars!?? He murmured the words aloud as he turned the sack over and over curiously. He tore away the sealing wax, slipped off the string that closed the neck and plunged his hands wrist-deep inside. He quickly drew forth a handful of shining ' pieces, looked at them intently, then turned the sack upside : down. A clinking, ringing yellow stream rattled to the ground ; in front of him. He peered at the heap wide-eyed for a long ; time, then from his lips burst a single, hideous shriek. A week afterward some prospectors found his body with hands clutched tightly over the eyes as if to shut out some horrible sight. Attached to the string of the empty coin sack they found a letter and they read it wonderingly. It said: “DEAR Dora: “ Here is the ‘prop’ you asked me to have made for your ama- teur theatricals. I told one of the boys at the smelter you wanted a coin sack full of something that would look like twenty-dollar pieces, and he fixed up this for me. The ‘coins’ may appear too yellow at close range, but on the stage they === ought to look like the real thing. I have sealed the sack, so .« the illusion ought to be complete. I am sending this up the line “. to you by my friend Tim Kelly, the messenger on to-night’s ex- press. He will give it to one of the boys at the station to send =“ over to you. I tell him the success of your show depends on his ~ ' wm ~=safe delivery of the goods. Tim is waiting for this, so I won't

The Law of Compensation

109 capped with snow and their sides forest-clothed. They appeared very cool and very near, only a few miles; but to the f.% _ eye desert distances are deceiving and treacherous. He walked rapidly for a while. It grew hotter. The sun poured down a fearful, scorching heat. There was no escape from it; not a vestige of anything that cast a shadow was in sight. Under his feet the earth was blistering hot. He felt a dull, throbbing pain at the back of his head that intensified into a sense of burning pressure. The metallic clink in the sack excited his imagination again, but the sun’s glare produced a different effect from the moonlight. Ten thousand dollars! jured no dreams of revelry now; only the passion of avarice— dogged, tenacious, miser’s love of money for its own sake— was left in him. His water was gone and he staggered a little sometimes. It was getting hotter all the time. through the motions of moistening his lips with his tongue, It con- He went but there was no moisture there; both were dry and swollen and cracked. His eyes were bloodshot from the scald of the alkali. Ten thousand dollars! It boomed in his ears at every write any more. “Your affectionate brother, * ee” They gently lifted the body to one side and there on the ~ desert lay a pile of blank, brass disks. oe g~ J -%«< -_. oe oe ie - o ., tesa -* ° os : é ee

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You Can’t be Funny all the Time BY JEROME K. JEROME FAN most families there exists a /(j private particular joke. It ~“@ is known as the Family Joke. Oe Inside the family it causes YX% shouts of laughter. Outside a A if its own family it falls flat. OA In the same way there are “# national jokes. We do not alec SS PAR bh Kod in consequence talk about YZ ZE and distinguish between the humor of the Browns and the humor of the Joneses. There is a danger that the stage is coars- ening humor. I went to one of the New York vaudeville theaters not long ago and during the course of the performance an actor came on—doubtless a capable repre- sentative of his craft—who gave a very delicate recital, full of real humor and of witty points. This performer but mildly amused the audience; he was merely tolerated. Following on his heels came a company who proceeded to engage them- selves simply in “knock-about business.” One man sat down on a bandbox and wiped his face with a feather boa, or a hat, I forget which, and tipped up against a sideboard and brought down a lot of crockery, and so on. This went on for about twenty minutes and the whole of the audience were de- lighted. From all appearances they were intelligent, educated people. It was un- doubtedly a first-class theater—if I may so assume from the fact that I was sitting in a dollar seat. The audience was composed of professional people—well-to-do trades- folk and business men. But they did not seem to enjoy the humor of the preceding actor, which was real humor. They pre- ferred the “knock-about business.” They roared over it. They doubled themselves up with laughter. I think the American indulges too much in humor. He really absorbs too much humor. It is like a man who has come to drink champagne for every meal. He drinks it every day and all day long. I was getting up a little dinner once for an editorial friend of mine, and this gentleman, 110 the proprietor of a journal, left the arrange- ments in my hands. I was to invite a dozen or so people. He gave me carte blanche to arrange for the dinner. But he was a busi- ness man; he didn’t want me to waste money. He told me so. It was an affair to be done properly, but sensibly. I went to a good restaurant which I hap- pened to know, and proceeded to interview the head waiter. He was a man who knew his business, and understood mine. He said: “We ought to start out with champagne about eight years old. Let that go around twice.” (This particular brand was four- teen shillings the bottle, or here, three dollars and fifty cents the bottle.) “After that,”’ he said; “we will try I forget the brand; a brand at about two- thirds that price. “To finish them up”— he was a nice, fatherly, practical old gen- tleman and a man of experience—“ we will have,” he said, “a good, sound wine at five and sixpence the bottle.” I was doubtful. I said: “T want these people to go home pleased with themselves. I want them to know that they have had a good time.” He replied: “That is all right. By the time a man has drunk three or four glasses of champagne I defy him to tell whether what he is drinking is champagne at four- teen shillings the bottle or sound old goose- berry at five and six. You let them finish up with that and they will enjoy it.” There is danger of the American mud- dling himself on humor. He wants it early in the morning and he wants it all thetime. And his palate for it is deteriorat- ing. What can you expect? Humor is an appetizer, not a joint. To take humor in the quantity that the American is taking it is like quenching one’s thirst in cocktails. It is not healthy. And, besides, the supply of cocktails is limited. If we drink it out of buckets it will be used up. We do not ask a man to sit down and take a “Book of Jokes”’ and steadily read through it from the first page to the last. By the time he had read about half an hour ”

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he would be sick of jokes. A joke should be a firework. Humor should be a display of fireworks. You see them occasionally and you enjoy them. But imagine a man compelled to sit at a window and watch a pyrotechnical display, beginning with his breakfast and continuing all day until after . supper, and that day after day, for a year! He would not want to see fireworks again as long as he lived. Humor does not dance to beck and call. You Can’t be Funny all the Time Fas Saturday afternoon when I was stopping in my office. I began with the usual hopeless feeling that every editor of any experience always starts with when taking up the manuscript of an unknown author. But before I had read two lines I “sat up.” Before I finished the first two para- graphs I was chuckling. At the bottom of the first page I was laughing outright, and congratulating myself as well. I didn’t bother to read any more manu- Drawn from a photograph by M JEROME K, No one delights more in W. W. Jacobs’s stories than I do. Indeed, I can take. the honor of being the first editor to introduce Mr. W. W. Jacobs to the reading public of two continents, and I hope of many more. Jacobs’s material had been going the round of the London papers for years. Whether any other editor had ever looked at it I cannot say. He has told meat all events that they never accepted any of it. But there came a day. I read a little manuscript one Stein JEROME I felt that I had done a very good afternoon’s work, I had made a “discovery.” I wrote to Mr. W. W. Jacobs. The result was that so long as I remained in the editorial control of “ To- day ’’ that publication was the chief vehicle of Mr. Jacobs’s work. I mention this, first, because I was proud of the discovery, and secondly, because it now points my moral. I would not read any two of Mr. Jacobs’s stories at one script that day.

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112 Cosmopolitan Magazine - sitting for any consideration. The one would spoil the other. Humor taken in chunks loses all flavor. And do not think that humor is spontaneous, or thrall to the humorist. At my own house I have known Mr. Jacobs to wander about for a week try- ing to finish one story. He simply could not get one idea into his head. I know, too, that he tried dictating to his sister to save time, because he was in a hurry—doubtless had good reasons to be, good substantial reasons—but she waited for many an hour while he was trying to study out or settle on one single sentence. Even assuming that humor is the salt of life, we don’t want to eat salt with a spoon. But here in America everything seems to be sacrificed to humor. Your politics have to be made humorous. Your courts of justice have to amuse. Before a great time has gone by you will be having funny sermons. We shall hear that the Reverend So-and-So’s Sunday morning’s sermon was a real screamer—that it was received with roars of laughter. Then the church service will be considered a bit too slow, and will have to be rewritten by some bright young humorist from a newspaper office. Your very murder cases will have to be made “bright.” It is a fore- gone conclusion that domestic tragedies shall be side-splitting. I really am_ not sure that in time America will not get to a comical funeral service, with a low-comedy undertaker. The rogue that can make people laugh is a welcome addition to society. In time to come doors will be left open for the hu- morous burglar. No, you can’t be funny all the time. Life is life and humor is decimal one per cent. of it,and no more. This flood of so-called humor which is threatening to submerge all common sense is not humor. A good deal of it is a mixture of cruelty and stupidity. It is not keenness of humor, but bluntness of sympathy that prompts us to laugh at stories that would be better cried over. And humor does not depend on geog- raphy. Its borders are human intelligence. A man who is quick to see humor is a man who is also quick to see pathos, tragedy— those inner deeps, so subtly stirred by the magic wand of true humor. A humorist requires both conscience and taste—and when we use the word humorist we mean, understand, that we are talking not only of the writer but also of the reader. One is helpless without the other. A joke that nobody sees is not a joke. Humor is not a thing like a brick wall that is there or is not there. Humor is an essence, a flavor. If a man cannot taste it it does not exist for him. It is absurd to talk about a difference be- tween American and English humor. Does not the American enjoy “ Alice in Wonder- land”? and “Alice Through the Looking- Glass’’? If any humor can be characteristic of a soil surely the humor of Dickens is charac- teristic of England—of its roast beef and plum pudding, of its old ivied houses, of its gray, quaint city streets, of its very fog. Yet who have been Dickens’s most appre- ciative readers? Mark Twain has as many admirers in England as he has in America. - His humor is as much appre- ciated in England as it isin America. That is certain. Just as the true humor of Jacobs is appreciated in this country. Then, too, I hear many sneers at poor old London ‘‘ Punch.” Iam not here as counsel for “ Punch,” and I have read jokes in “ Punch” that I failed to under- stand—so have I in American papers. But why forget that Du Maurier was for years and years on the staff of ‘ Punch??? There was another man, too, very popular on the staff of “Punch” years ago. His name was Artemus Ward. I think he has been heard of in America. The average Englishman is, perhaps, a little slower at seeing humor than is the average American. He is a little slower at seeing other things. That I will grant. But it must be remembered that the Ameri- can is a young man compared with the Englishman and he is ni iturally a little more alert. His climate has helped him. But why these long arguments about humor, as if it were a political question? We might as well fall to discussing the sun- shine, the scent of violets, the sound children’s footsteps. Why seek to analyze an impalpable essence, a delicate scent that enters into our lives? Why thunder about it from platforms, and write articles about it—such as this? Humor is a fairy, floating to us on the sunbeams. We seek to catch her, label her, exhibit her, appraise her in the markets of the word. When the world has discovered what humor is, humor will have ceased to exist. SIE OT

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LECT A APR IIT TE mE8 AE Ty A, Magazine Shop-Talk Furore Created by the Tremendous “ Treason of the Senate" Series UCH a blazing indictment of corruptionists in high places as Mr. Phillips’s “Treason of the Senate’’ could not fail Although Mr. Phillips made only a mere beginning in his { first instalments and did not get so very far into his sub- ject proper, what was published in the March and April numbers was so arrestive and convincing that the American people responded to it in their characteristically spontaneous manner. Never in its history has the CosMOPOLITAN been so eagerly bought and read as in the instance of those historical March and April numbers. Not only did Mr. Phillips receive the im- mediate support of the great army of maga- zine readers, but Mr. Crosby, who wrote the splendidly distinctive editorial articles on “The House of Dollars,” was also specially commended. Letters have come pouring in from all the large towns and many from the remotest hamlets, having for their subject this re- markable new series of exposé articles. These letters have come from all sorts of people. In nearly every case they have been, as it seems to the COSMOPOLITAN, sin- cere and in no wise reflecting any partisan- ship. In a former number the Cosmopott- TAN reprinted extracts from a great number of letters which came floating into its office as the result of the announcement of the publication of “ The Treason of the Senate”’ articles. It seemed to strike the people that here was a subject that had been neglected by the magazines, in spite of its tremendous importance and the conspicuous need of such a publication. But if the mere an- nouncement caused such an influent tide of correspondence, judge what the actual pub- lication of the first instalments must have brought forth! We intend in this issue to reprint some more extracts. They will not be chosen because of the prominence of the writers. It is intended to give the plain people an opportunity for expression in print. We will begin, however, by quoting from a letter written by John Ward Stimson, who was long director of art education in the New York Metropolitan Museum of Art, and who is an author and lecturer of note. Professor Stimson writes: The country cannot be too grateful for the splendid promise of such articles as those which Jack London, Crosby and David Phil- lips offer it—ringing with the “right stuff” and the real moral courage (now urgently required, and called for, from all sections, with trumpet tones!!). Lawson has done nobly; Phillips can strike an even more fatal blow to “ High Treason” and “ Lése-majesté” (of mammon versus lib- erty). ri From P. S. Williams, of the Republican Printing Company, Elyria, Ohio, we have received the following: The United States Senate needs a lesson. It needs to find out whom it is working for. As an employment agency for the people the state legislature has proved a failure. Let the people hire their senators directly. 113

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j { 114 Cosmopolitan Magazine “ Yours for the good work” is the way that W. C. Longworth, of Ocran, Va., signs himself to the following: I would consider myself guilty of the basest ingratitude did I not express my apprecia- tion of the way in which Mr. Phillips is dealing with our national body. Let the good work go on. Cripple Creek, Col., voices its sentiments in a note from J. A. Evans, from which the following paragraph is taken: Lawson, in his “ Frenzied Finance,” Stef- fens and others, have done a grand educa- tional work among the masses, but Mr. David Graham Phillips has struck the key- note of oppression and graft. Mr. Phillips's exposition is the best thing I've seen yet. I hope he will never let up until he has laid bare the rascality of everything in the United States Congress. Charles R. Eckert, of Beaver, Penn., writes: I am in hearty accord with the policy of your splendid magazine. What can a self- respecting man think of such a band of com- mercial pirates as sit in what is commonly regarded as the highest legislative body in the world? I am simply disgusted with them, and, next to abolishing the whole miserable farce, I am certainly in favor of electing United States senators by the peo- ple. . . . The great power in the hands of commercial and political tyrants is mo- nopoly as affecting the necessities of life. We have from clergymen several letters in which we are bidden Godspeed in the work of senatorial reform. Among them is one from E. A. Wasson, rector of St. Stephen’s Church, Newark, New Jersey, in which is the following paragraph: I thank God that a man and a magazine have arisen courageous enough to turn the light on the United States Senate. In this case the usual presumption of innocence is reversed, so that a man now taking member- ship in it is to be presumed a crook until the contrary is proved. W. G. Eggleston, of Helena, Mont., takes an enthusiastic Western view of the article and writes: When the CosmMopoLitan announced “ The Treason of the Senate” by that young man I admire so much, I made a note of it in my little paper, and during the past three days I have personally conducted seven of my acquaintances into the bookstores and _ per- suaded them to buy the March number. “The American people are with you shoulder to shoulder in this fight,” says E. C. W. Ryland, of Friendsville, Md., who also writes: Congratulations upon the bold, brave fight you have inaugurated upon the grave con- ditions to-day confronting our country. In- scribed upon the dome of the magnificent library of Congress at Washington are these words: “ Tenorance is the curse of God, Knowledge the wing wherewith we fly to heaven.” Oh, for a flood tide of knowledge that will penetrate the remotest corners of our coun- try! Let it be turned on! From Honolulu, Hawaii, Walter Gifford Smith writes: Out here we take little interest in the political affairs of New York, but in read- ing the insurance news many of us have thought that the insurance ring had found Senators Depew and Platt as serviceable as the Oregon land ring had found Senator Mitchell and certain. other concerns had found Senator Burton. Should these men be permitted to remain in office? Hawaii has its academic opinion, of course, but per- haps Oregon and Kansas, out of the depths of their experience, could put more feeling into a response. The election of senators by the people would probably work as well as the election of governors by the people. Bs “One of the common people”’ is the way G. A. Spring, of Covington, Penn., signs himself to a note in which he says: I have just read the first instalment of Mr. Phillips’s ‘* Treason of the Senate.” Glory hallelujah! You have found a David who is able and willing to attack this Goliath of a Senate. John P. Martin, pastor of the Methodist Episcopal Church, of Fontana, Kan., writes in the following vein: I am delighted with Mr. Phillips’s first article on “ The Treason of the Senate,” and with the spirit of your magazine. I have been wondering what is the matter with the clergy of America. Why are they silent on these live questions, lingering so long among the tombs of departed glory? The Master said, “Ye cannot serve God and Mammon.” When Judas sold his Mas- ter for thirty pieces of silver the high priests would not receive it into the coffers of the church, because it was the price of blood; but when John D. Rockefeller betrays man- a ee RAL NR I 1

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SALE RNe kind for gold the church receives his ill- gotten gains and he is permitted to subsidize colleges and send the Gospel of Standard Oil to far-off lands. If Christ should come to his temple to-day, would not his first work be to drive the gods of Mammon out? & J. M. Miller, editor and publisher of the “Republican Advocate,” Wellsboro, Penn., sends the following: Any senator who holds other than the interests of the nation as his highest duty should be driven from his seat in disgrace by an aroused public. I mean no anarchical outbreak, but the storm of righteous con- demnation and an honest ballot. Senatorial elections bf popular vote have become a necessity. Extreme power carries an obliga- tion of most sacred duty. Delegation through prior delegation is a_ republican anomaly, a democratic absurdity. That sena- torial elections are controlled by mighty in- fluences inimical to the interests of the peo- ple is sufficient argument for an affirmative answer. A better, however, lies in the knowl- edge that senatorial decadence is so mani- fest as to arouse ridicule and contempt, pre- cursors of distrust and scorn. The Senate has fallen from its high estate. It needs purging. It must be thoroughly swept of the chaff. B. W. Tennant, of West Pittston, Penn., wants us to give a concrete plan for abolish- ing the senatorial evil. He says: In David Graham Phillips’s “Treason of the Senate” there is no possible question but that he is “ going after” the most crying evil that has ever cursed our country. Don’t be content with stirring up the foul depths of political treachery and dishonor into which our upper house has sunk, for the American people, however much inter- ested, will never of themselves originate a plan to better their condition. Some one must lead, and it is up to the CosMopoLITAN to suggest to the people a definite remedy. O. T. Allen, editor of the “Daily Jour- nal,” of Lansing, Mich., works his type- writer to the following purpose: The CosMopoLiTaN, in my opinion, will perform a patriotic and great public service if it shall succeed in arousing the people to an understanding of the true situation in the United States Senate and the necessity for a change in the Constitution so as to per- mit the election of senators by the people. Scandalous as the condition is with reference to the New York senators, it is scarcely any better in other states. Over one-half of the senators are representative of their own great wealth or that of special interests inimical to the general welfare. Magazine Shop-Talk 115 Another Michigan editor, John W. Egan, of the Fremont “ News-Indicator,” writes: [I am with you for a United States Senate elected by the people to represent the people and not the corporations. Count the “ News- Indicator ” with you in the reform. Glad the matter has been taken up by so able a maga- zine as the CoSMOPOLITAN. And still another M chigan editor, C. H. Newell, of the “Courier and Republican,” of Coldwater, says: I am glad the Cosmopo.itan will handle this subject. No doubt there are among the number some senators who are a credit to their state personally, but these few are in mighty bad company and are liable to become contaminated, so that a wl olesale resignation from office on the part of these officials would be looked upon as a piece of good fortune too good to be true We have many other letters from editors, including one from H. L. Heath of the “News,” of Marshall, Ind., in which Mr. Heath promises that his editorial columns shall support Mr. Phillips in his great under- taking. And then there are stacks of epistles from attorneys, physicians, business men and laboring men. Rollin T. Chafer, of 351 West 19th Street, New York, sends these sympathetic words: For several years I have not been a reader of the CosmMopoLitAN, but my attention has been attracted to the March number by David Graham Phillips’s article. Although a Republican, I am in hearty sympathy with any movement which has for its object the loosening of a plutocratic grasp on the United States Senate. I shall look forward with in- terest to future articles by Mr. Phillips. s So great was the demand fsr copies of the March CosMopoLitaNn that the unusually large edition of 430,000 was exhausted within five days after publication. “ All sold out!’? was the word received from newsdealer after newsdealer within a week after publication day, February 15th. For April a still larger edition, 450,000, was put out on March 15th, and it also was exhausted in a few days. If the present rate of progress continues, the CosMoPoLITAN will pass the half-million mark, when, on the customary estimate of five readers for each magazine, it will have 2,500,000 readers.

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BY AMBROSE BIERCE Imaginary Dialogues SJOKEY: The United States Sen- «| ate is a den of Depews. Fum: That is gigantic lan- guage! H.: We can hope for no reform except through an amendment to the Constitution, requiring senators to be elected by a direct vote of the people. F.: Like the state legislators to whom we are indebted for the Depews. H.: Irony is no argument. F.: Let me state it another way. You want to elect senators by popular vote so as to get honest men instead of the rogues whom the men now elected by popular vote are so dishonest as to choose for us. H.: Of course you can put it that way, but—to test your sincerity—do you ap- prove the present plan of choosing United States senators ? F.: No. H.: What plan would you substitute ? F.: None. H.: In other words, while our highest legislative body is impenitently corrupt you are content to lie supine. F.: Prone, preferably; bad government we must have, but we need not invite nightmare. H.: Enjoy your pessimism while you may; matters will be different when we have the right kind of laws. F.: We have every kind. We have such an incalculable multitude of laws that we cannot even name them for condemnation and repeal; most of them merely fall into disuse and are no more. When they fail of their purpose we clamor for more laws. 116 H.: I invite your assistance; let us en- force the good ones. F.: Let us catch comets. H.: Why can we not execute the good laws that we have? F.: Because we entrust their execution to bad or foolish men—to the same kind of men whom we should select to execute those that we have not. Moreover, the laws that human ingenuity can devise, human ingenuity can evade. Laws restrain only the timid and the indolent; courts punish only the foolhardy, the feeble and the luckless. Your judicial system is per- fect, your political is ideal; you lack noth- ing but justice and good government. H.: You have changed your pronoun —you say “your” and “you.” Why not “our”? and “we’’? F.: I have just remembered my mor- tality. There is no citizenship of the dead. rg Poky: We are on the eve of an era of universal peace. Fum: That is timely; the last century has been the bloodiest in history and it is no news to you that “Europe is an armed camp.” P.: Men of light and leading have to-day a strong aggressive aversion to war. F.: When had they not? P.: But to-day the masses share it. F.: They always did, except when a war of their own was on. P.: It is no longer easy for their rulers to bring it about. F.: Nor to prevent it. Do you happen to remember the strenuous exertions of two recent American Presidents to avert cra! | TL TT SS To CT EPS SME ai ei ks

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a war with a most reluctant European power? The most nearly irresistible polit- ical force is the passionate pressure of a people bent on bloodshed. War's a game which, were their rulers strong, Men would not play at. P.: Sir, that is misquoted. F.: I confess that it has that customary merit. P.: We have international arbitration. F.: Competent to settle all disputes that would be settled without it. Disputes involving “the national honor’ are spe- cifically excluded. Whenever nations wish to fight they conceive their “honor” to have been assailed. Every age has be- lieved that it had, or was about to have, a sovereign antidote for the war disease. Arbitration is ours, and we have countless others. Also we have cutthroatitis. P.: War is becoming too horrible to exist. The modern destructive weap- ons F.: Are comparatively harmless, modern battles comparatively bloodless. The most destructive weapon was the Roman short sword. When battles were fought with sword and spear combatants had to meet. They “got mad” and there was no escape for the weaker. Also, they slew the wounded, instead of healing them, and enslaved the prisoners. Ancient warfare was unthinkably more horrible than mod- ern; in the memorable words of Scipio Africanus, “Bellum Avernus est!’ Its horrors did not stop it, yet it ceased. H.: Eh? what’s that? F.: Let go that straw—it became modern war. H.: You tumor! F.: For the purpose of my argument let me admit that “ destructive’? weapons may bring about peace. But peace will destroy the destructive weapon, for what is no longer needed will be, and soon can be, no longer made, though anybody can make a bow-and-arrows and a spear. With primi- tive conditions restored, what is to prevent resumption of war? P.: Experience of peace. F.: Go till the soil. ra Wanky: Capital punishment—— Fum: You mean the death penalty, The Passing Show 117 doubtless; capital punishment may be a very different thing. W.: As you please. The death penalty is a disgrace. F.: To him who incurs it, yes; to others it is merely self-defense. W.: To kill an assassin does not defend the victim, who is already dead. F.: It defends the rest of us from that assassin, and some of us from others of his breed. That is worth while. W.: Every hanging proves that hanging does not deter. F.: It proves that it does not altogether deter; that is as much as you are justified in saying. It is true, however, that it deters only indirectly; what protects us in some degree is the threat to hang. But what would be the protective value of a threat never executed? An obvious bluff is always called. W.: I have not the knowledge to under- stand. I pass. F.: Do you believe that when a man’s life is in peril he has a right to protect it with a threat of death? W.: Yes. F.: Then why deny that right to a num- ber of men—to the great majority of men acting in concert? W.: A threat of perpetual imprisonment would be equally effective. F.: Except as to the prison officials. When a man is already suffering the ex- treme penalty that the law can impose what is to prevent him from killing his keeper ?— an offense to which, as a matter of fact, “lifers’’ are greatly addicted. W.: Solitary confinement. F.: You merciless brute, get out o’ this! As to Cartooning Fw] HEN in the course of human “1 events I shall have been duly instated as head of the art department of an American newspaper, a decent respect for the principles of my trade will impel me to convene my cartoonists and utter the hortatory remarks here following: “Gentlemen, you will be pleased to understand some of the limitations of your art, for therein lies the secret of efficiency. To know and respect your limitations, not

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118 Cosmopolitan Magazine seeking to transcend them, but ever to occupy the entire area of activity which they bound—that is to accomplish all that it is given to you to do. Your limitations are of two kinds: those inconsiderable ones imposed by nature, and the less negligible ones for which you will have to thank the tyrant that has the honor to address you. “Your first and highest duty, of course, is to afflict the Eminent Unworthy. To the service of that high purpose I invite you with effusion, but shall limit you to a single method—ridicule. You may not do more than make them absurd. Happily that is the sharpest affliction that Heaven has given them the sensibility to feel. When one is conscious of being ridiculous one experiences an incomparable and im- medicable woe. Ridicule is the capital punishment of the unwritten law. “T shall not raise the question of your natural ability to make an offender hate- ful, but only say that it is not permitted to you to do so in this paper. The reason should be obvious: you cannot make him hateful without making a hateful picture, and a paper with hateful pictures is a hateful paper. Some of you, I am deso- lated to point out, have at times sinned so grievously as to make the victim—or at- tempt to make him—not only hateful but offensive, not only offensive but loathsome. Result: hateful, offensive, loathsome car- toons, imparting their unpleasant character to the paper containing them; for the con- tents of a paper are the paper. “And, after all, this folly fails of its purpose—does not make its subject offen- sive. An eminently unworthy person—a political ‘boss,’ a ‘king of finance,’ or a ‘gray wolf of the Senate’-—is a man of normal appearance; his face, his figure, his postures, are those of the ordinary human being. In the attempt to make him offen- sive the caricaturist’s art of exaggeration is carried to such an extreme as to remove the victim from the domain of human inter- est. The loathing inspired by the im- possible creation is not transferred to the person so candidly misrepresented; the picture is made offensive, but its subject is untouched. As well try to hate a faulty triangle, a house upside down, a vacuum, or an abracadabra. Let there be surcease of so mischievous work; it is not desired that this paper shall be prosperous in spite of its artists, but partly because of them. “True, to make a man ridiculous you must make a ridiculous picture, but a ridiculous picture is not displeasing. If well done, with only the needful, that is to say artistic, exaggeration, it is pleasing We like to laugh, but we do not like—pardon me—to retch. The only person pleased by an offensive cartoon is its author; the only one pained by a ridiculous one is its victim. “Tn my next talk with you I shall have something to say touching the American revival of the early cave-dweller’s art, mani- fested in pictures with labeled figures and visible speech. Until then you will kindly put what your figures have to say below the picture, in the European manner, and trust me to give you a good reason for it. The class is dismissed—no fighting on the sidewalk.” The Mighty From Their Seat The War Lord fierce on the-sham battle- field, So brave that he would rather fly than yield, Breathes, for he must, the powder smoke he fights in, But talcum is the powder he delights in. Armed to resist eviction, warlike France Her foot upon Morocco firmly plants. Lo! in the shadow at her back abiding, King Edward’s formidable bulk—in hiding. Begirt with bombs that fall and flames that rise, The Tsar, bewildered, stares. “Alas,” he cries, “Life withholds joy and death denies release! And Roosevelt would have me think this peace.” ‘War with all Europe!’”’ Castro waves his tongue. All Europe sleeps, lulled by his sounding Jung. Scared by her snore, his challenge he re- scinds, And furls the red flag in his cave of winds. =

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MEMARSEL oe ‘‘Empress of China’! I nor rule nor reign: I wear the purple but to hide the chain— Free only to hold back the open door For foreign devils drunk upon the floor.” “Nay, take me not for such a servile knave, Fawning on conscience, to my word a slave. What ho! without, there!’’ Enter the three Fates, Bowing as one: “ My lord, the third term waits,” = )OSTERITY appears to be in a | bad way and may not live out half its days—unless, indeed, the great law of the survival of the fittest shall adapt it to an environment profoundly different from that which we have the happiness to know. From a single issue of a newspaper I clip three cable telegrams foreshadowing mo- mentous changes in the favoring conditions now enabling us to hang on to life for a brief season by tooth and nail. From London comes the word that ‘Sir Archibald Geikie, the noted professor of physical geography” (I don’t recall him —there are so many noted professors of things) prophesies a second deluge. His notion is that owing to universal erosion the earth’s surface will, “‘in a comparatively short time,” be reduced to the level of the sea and every living thing be drowned. Another distinguished scientist, Pro- fessor Martel, whose specialty is explora- tion of caves, utters in Paris the doleful cry that in a very few centuries “a large pro- portion of the inhabitants of the earth will have died of thirst unless something is done to prevent the lowering of the earth’s water level by erosion.” A layman may perhaps venture to think this prophecy of doom not altogether consistent with the other. But, like nature, science “speaks a various language” and it is better to be right in Paris than consistent with London. The third prediction, by Sir Oliver Lodge, takes account of the incessant exhaustion of solar heat—a phenomenon based upon as solid ground of assumption as any that we know about. Sir Oliver, who is nothing if not accurate and is not accurate, makes The Passing Show 119 figures in the matter and finds that in “about” twenty million years the sun will have grown so cold, and with it the earth, that human life here below will be neither possible nor desirable. Not a word is he reported to have said of its previous ex- tinction by too much salt water or too little fresh; so he is to be considered as the Jeremiah of an independent and com- petitive disaster. It is not new under the sun nor are those of the other learned fore- casters; all bear the credentials of an antiquity coeval with that of the Chaldean shepherds who invented astronomy three thousand years before they were themselves invented. ‘The interest of these predictions and their value to the race, lie in the wide latitude that they give to individual prefer- ence. To die of drowning, of thirst, or of frost—all may be suited and science robbed of half its terrors. On the Uses of Euthanasia JHE proposal to forestall a pain- | ful death by a painless one is not, to normal sensibilities, “shocking.” If persuaded of its expediency no _ physician should give it a hesitating advocacy through fear of being thought brutal. It is an error to suppose that familiarity with death and suffering exhausts the springs of compassion in one born compassionate. Like many other qualities, compassion grows by use: none has more of it than the physician, the nurse, the soldier in war. He to whom the menace of an injustice is a louder voice than the call of conscience has no standing in the House of Pain, no warrant to utter judg- ment as to the conduct of its affairs. Pain is cruel, death is merciful. Prolon- gation of a mortal agony is hardly less bar- barous than its infliction. To the suffering animal we grant the coup de gréce—to ‘‘put it out of its misery.” Is our own race un- worthy of that compassionate rite? Who when sane in mind and body would not choose to guard himself against a futile suffering by an assurance of accelerated release? Every memory is charged with in- stances, observed or related, of piteous ap- peals for death from the white lips of agony, yet how rarely can these formulate the

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120 Cosmopolitan Magazine prayer! To its concession, regulated by law, there is the objection that law is frangi- ble and judgment fallible. But that objection has no greater cogency in this than in other matters; laws we must have, and execute them with such care as we can. Our courts sometimes err in the diagnosis of crime, yet they warrant our trust in the general service of our need. The mariner’s compass is fallible, the winds baffle and the waves destroy; yet we have navigation. Even the anarchist cries out against law, not because it does not accom- plish its purpose, but because it does. We build our civilization with such tools as: we have; if we waited for perfect ones the structure would never rise. The juror is no more nearly just and infallible than the physician; if we can entrust ourselves with death as a penalty for crime we need not shrink from the no more awful responsi- bility of according it as a boon to hopeless pain. In neither case can a blunder do more than hasten the inevitable. ‘‘When I was born I cried,” said a philosopher; ““now I know why.” He did not know why; it was because he heard at the moment of his birth the sentence of death A May-Day Dilemma Drawing by E. Warde Blaisdell ELEGANT APARTMENT sh ED. aon Loe > E WAGDE BUISDELK Landlord (to possible tenant): I have no vacancies, but I will rent you the upper half of those branches the sloths occupy. 8 i ; ¢

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| | | Our Senatorial Grand Dukes BY ERNEST CROSBY OUNT LEO TOLSTOY some time ago made the statement that the American President is as much a tyrant as the Russian Tsar. This is a pretty extreme assertion, and it is hardly to be wondered at that many people thought it proved that the Mus- covite writer was in his dotage, or at least that he was totally ignorant of history. The Russian bear is of course a beast of prey, but we are not accustomed to think of the American eagle in the same réle. And yet, as is so often the case with Tolstoy’s apparent exaggerations, there is a grain of truth in his remark. There is nothing of the tyrant in the personality of the President, but neither is there anything of the kind in the Tsar. He is a quiet, domestic sort of a man, who would like to be let alone. Most of the acts of tyranny which tarnish his name are performed in spite of him. His fault is that he happens to be the chief of a tyrannous and oppressive system, which paralyzes such desires to do right as he may cherish. Clearly what Count Tolstoy meant to say was that Tsar and President are alike the figureheads of systems which involve the evils of tyranny. Before we can quash this indictment we must inquire what the essentials of tyranny are. People are tyrannized over when their interests are sacrificed to those of their rulers. Applying this test, can we truthfully say that our American system of governing is free from all imputation of tyranny? Do not the interests of the great trusts as surely override those of the people at Washington as do those of the grand dukes at St. Petersburg? In whose interest is it that the Ameri- can people should have to pay half as much again for steel rails as foreigners pay for them? Is it in their interest, or in that of the steel trust? And if the government refuses to grant relief in this respect to the American people, and to modify the tariff for their benefit—and this at the behest of the steel trust—are we not suffering from tyranny as truly as the Russian peasant? And so with our exorbitant telegraph and telephone charges. They are the fruits of the tyranny of a monopoly-controlled government. And just as the Tsar’s hands are tied, when he endeavors to introduce re- forms, so are the President’s. What has become of the reciprocity treaties with which President McKinley intended to open the way for tariff revision? Ask the grand dukes of the Senate. Why are Mr. Roosevelt’s efforts to prevent the building up of trusts by railway rebates emasculated? Ask the same ring of senatorial highnesses. It is proposed at St. Petersburg to clean out the palace and its selfish and corrupt cliques, so that reforms may have a chance of success. We must do something of the same kind at Washington. The Senate must no longer be allowed to block the way of every promising measure of relief. Sena- tors consult the interests of the trusts because they are chosen by the trusts. Perhaps they would consult the interests of the people, if they were elected by the people.