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About The Loup City northwestern. (Loup City, Neb.) 189?-1917 | View Entire Issue (Nov. 23, 1905)
t cmm c®w» ®? FMdM™® MLOLOflDR J3r CHARLES MORRIS BUTLER. JIM/iof of "iBe of fV«me'yf Tenetnen/ '/hatettfsfotfj.5fe Copyright, 1905, by Charles Morris Butler. CHAPTER XXVII. In the Counterfeiters’ Den. The evening before the beginning of the insurrection, Lang visited Schiller and explained to the king that he was ready to go to work, requesting that Schiller give him permission to visit tHe counterfeiting den. As it was known that Louis was a printer and that he would presumably make a valuable addition to that force, his re quest was granted and he obtained his pass, which he presented at the door of the "den" very early the next morning. Lang was met at the door of the of fice by the chief counterfeiter in per son, who was none other than Marcus M?lton, one of the shrewdest rascals ever born. He has been instrumental in flooding certain districts in the United States with counterfeit money to such an extent that “good” money is thrown out as worthless. It is es timated by experts that he and his gang have succeeded in placing fully one million silver dollars on the mar ket that are not known from the gen uine, containing full weight metal, but at a profit of over $500,000. He was caught in the act and sentenced to '■ Auburn for thirty years, but managed to escape. He was engaged at the present in the. manufacture of $10 notes under the protection of the city. Milton read the order presented to him by Lang and very graciously con ducted Louis into the "oflice,” where they chatted together about Chicago and things in general. “I am a printer,” said Louis, "but I have never seen any bills of the char acter of money printed.” “The ‘printing' of money,” said Mil ton, who liked to air his knowledge about the business, “is never seen by any but trusted government officials— and perhaps no one man sees a bill ‘printed’ in its entirety. By ‘printing,’ I mean lithographing, the making of I" ' ' -:-n “Quick!” cried Louis; “get the plate together and get away.” Milton again stooped down to un lock the safe. Louis drew his re volver, Milton thought for the defense of the plate, but Louis was only wait ing to see the door swing back before engaging in a death struggle for the possession of the same. The plate had cost ten lives! Would there be an eleventh? Milton never would yield the treasure while life and consciousness remained. The scene was in Lang's favor. It was the intention of the convicts to capture every prominent building that they could. They arrived at the door of the printing office demanding admission. Louis grew impatient. He did not wish to be seen carrying off the plate. It had been his intention to make his escape unnoticed from the rear in the confusion. Milton grew nervous. Something made him hesitate. At the final turn, instead of unlocking, he turned the lock wrong and quickly sprang to his feet. Louis saw by the expression of the man's face that he suspected the plot, and then came a hand to hand struggle. Milton hurled himself against Lang. “I see it all!” snarled Milton. "This is a plot to rob me of the plate! It is now your death or mine!” Even when the final struggle came Lang did not like to kill Milton. Time and time again as the combatants, locked in each other’s embrace, wrig gled and turned and bit and clawed, scuffled around the room, Lang tried to hit his foe upon the head with the butt end of his revolver, but each time Milton parried the blow. Milton was a strong man, but his work, although not confining, had made him slow of action. He was possessed of but one thought, that of killing Louis, though in doing so he gave up his own life. T see it all!” snarled t.iilton. “This is a plot to rob me of the plate!” the paper, the numbering, signing, etc. Here one man does see all; I do. For we have but one press, and but one steel engraving to work from. The paper we use here is furnished by a Arm which deals in bogus continental and confederate money. It is the near est approach to the real paper that any one has yet devised. The threads interwoven in the paper are almost identical, save for a peculiar circular, instead of straight up and down, weave and the flattened ends, which none but experts can detect. “I print the front of the note first,” said Milton, guiding Lang into the press room, “so that should there be 2 flaw in the press work (which is different, from engraving)—for in stance, a. blurred impression—the printing of the back, which is verj seldom glanced at as critically as the front, will flatten out the note. Then by a process devised by myself, a new note is made to look as if it were about a year old. I have so much time to myself that I do not care to print the front and back together. They are too valuable to run any chance of mutilation. While one-half is on the press the other half I keep locked in my private safe. The en gravings were made by Glen Hall, the die-maker, and cost $10,000 in good money to produce. It is the finest ‘tool’ outside the government office to day. It has cost ten lives to keep from the authorities so far.” Thus far into the morning none of the counterfeiters had deported to work. Lang and Milton were startled by hearing the discharge of cannon. Milton very hastily took the plate off the press and ran with it into his of fice, closely followed by Lang, Milton became suspicious immediately, but he tried not to show any alarm—he scarcely dared to think there was a plot on foot. Looking out through the grated win dow of his office Milton saw the troops getting ready to fire upon the walls and government buildings. “A riot!” he exclaimed. “Guard the plate while I bring in the numbering machine," and he left the plate with Lang while he ran into the pressroom and brought in the numbering ma chine. “This little machine is what makes our bills good,” he added. “If I was not on to the system of number ing the bills they would be easily de tected. The system of numbering is more intricate than the signing, which is very easy of imitation when you know how.” While talking Jdtlton laid down the machine beside the engrav ing of the front of the note upon the top of the safe, while he reached down and began to turn the knob of the safe to form the combination. A cannon ball, thrown from a posi tion near the right wall of the town. struck the side of the den; Milton sprang to his feet; Lang ran to the window. They looked out; the town was alive with people. The conviets bad now been liberated from and armed to the teeth The convicts had heard the scuffle on the inside; they grew tired of wait ing for a reply to their summons, and brought a battering ram to play upon the door, shattering the door into fragments. The combatants on the inside had managed to throw themselves out of harm’s way and Milton had Louis pinned up against the wall, slowly squeezing the wind out of our hero. Up to this time Louis had refrained from trying to kill Milton. The time for desperate action arriving, Louis thrust the gun against the counter feiter’s breast and pulled the trigger. His antagonist fell to the floor, with out a murmur, just as the convicts sprang across the threshold. The convicts, under the leadership of Bill Hawks, rushed upon Louis and in a moment disarmed him. No pro testation by Louis that he was one of them availed him; the convicts seemed assured that he was an enemy and proceeded to tie his hands behind his back. The leader of the gang in the meantime knelt down before the safe and proceeded to open the same. First he took his knife and cut a gash in the index finger of his right hand, to attempt to feel when the combination struck the right clink. For about a minute Hawks worked at the safe, turning the knob very slowly. At last he seemed to have struck the right combination, and in a jiffy he guessed two numbers which to him seemed to fit the first combination, and strange to- say opened the safe. Bill Hawks, the safe cracker, was a very superior gentleman in that line. Bill Hawks, we may say, was no fool. He knew just what he was do ing when he went after the plate. “I know you, Louis Lang,” Hawks said, when he and Louis were left alone to gether for a minute. "How much will you give me for that plate?” “Nothing,” replied Louis, surprised at the man's tone. The man leered at Louis, insinuat ingly. “1 am not blind! It was never your intention to deliver this plate to Black Jack. You and Black Jack mean to play us false.” Louis couldn’t guess whether Hawks was trying him or not. Things began to look very blue for him, but he man aged to keep calm. “You can think wnat you like. I am a personal friend to Schiller now, and to Black Jack I am known as his leader in this revolt. You are the man who will be held re sponsible for the plate, not me!" “Enough of this folly!” Hawks ex claimed. “I know who and what you are! You are a pupil of Jim Denver! From him I want my life for this plate —and I get it, or I get your life! See?” Lang was fiumfounded. This was a fix he had not anticipated getting into. What was the best thing for him to do under the circumstances? “If you know who I am why don’t you give oamp as a traitor ano a spy,” said Hawks. Under ordinary circumstances Lang would have done well to have bought off Hawks, but he considered that he had not implicated himself. Hawks might or might not be really aware of the co-partnership existing between Denver and Lang. It would not do to trust the schemer too far. So Lang refused to compromise, resolving to risk being brought up before Schiller, and trusting to be liberated by that worthy in view of the partnership ex isting between them. . The victorious party, after ransack ing the office, set off toward the pal ace of the king. Whether they meant really to go to him or to "one on* who might now be in ehargs la only con jecture. Half of the town was in ruins, the walls and several buildings were quite effectually destroyed, but the bombardment had ceased. The convicts had mastered the situation, and then discovered that they had been fighting for nothing—after they gained their freedom. To continue to demolish and kill would only be to cripple themselves. They realized, when almost too late, that they had been made catspaws of by a shrewd band of conspirators who now were leaving them to answer for their sins. Rodgers, Golden and Black Jack, dur ing the first melee, had managed to make their escape unobserved. But Lang, unfortunately, was left in the hands of the mob! (To be continued.) A Lucky Awkwardness. An old, steady-going farmer was ac customed to ride to the market town upon a rather bad-tempered horse. One day his boy Bob brought the an imal, who was especially vicious that morning, round to the door, and held him by the bridle while waiting for the farmer to come out. The horse tried to bite and kick the lad, and gave him a good deal of trouble, but at last the farmer ap peared, mounted the horse with some difficulty and began wajking it out of the yard. Then Bob, who still enter tained ill-feeling against the animal, caught up a stone and flung it at him with all his force; but, alas! his aim was erratic and the missile struck his master on the back of the head. Half-dazed for a moment, the farm er turned slowly round in his saddle, and, never suspecting the real cause of the blow, he measured with his eye the distance from the horse’s hind hoofs to his own head, and, settled himself in the saddle again, started his mount into a trot with the re mark; “Well, he always was a awkward beggar.” Actor McConnell's Wit. The late William McConnell was one of the greatest threatrical jokers of his time. Augustus Thomas wrote a part for McConnell in the short lived “Cham pagne Charley.” He had not been on the stage for years, and it was thought that his characteristic humor might be amusing in the theater. That assumption proved incorrect, and McConnell retired from the show before its crush. Then a vaudeville sketch called “The Editor” was writ ten for him, and he tried that for two weeks. “Vaudeville’s all right, I suppose,” he said afterward, “but it didn’t agree with me.” “What was wrong?” asked one of his friends. “Well, I began in Chicago in a roof garden on top of a sixteen story sky scraper. The next week I went to St. Louis and played in Uhrig’s Cave. Could you beat anything like that? As I said, I think vaudeville is all right, but I could not stand the sudden changes in the climate.”—Washington Post. Found His Gimlet. The story goes, says B. F. Foster ol Milford, N. H., that “Daddy” Hay, who once lived at the corner of High and South streets in that town, lost a gim let and couldn’t find it. Days passed—no gimlet. It was the man’s habit to pray in his home circle, and when in prayer he always swung backward and forward. His eyes were always closed when he went forward and open when he drew backward. In the house the beams and rafters were visible overhead, and on a cer tain day, as he was at his devotions, his eyes opened and caught sight of that long-lost implement for boring holes, which was on a rafter overhead, where he had left it. His surprise was so great that he forgot to proceed with his prayer and excitedly ejaculated: “There’s that durned old gimlet”—or words that sounded like it. His Own Translator. At one of the hotels there Is a negro boy who runs an elevator in the day time and studies English literature at night. A few days ago he was given his envelope with a small fine deduct ed for some breach of the regulations. Quite Indignant he went to the cashier and began: “Mr. Gardner, if you should ever find it within the scope of your juris diction to levy an assessment on my wage for some trivial act, alleged to have been committed by myself, I would suggest that you refrain from exercising that prerogative. The fail ure to do so would of necessity force me to tender my resignation." The cashier tottering reached for his chair, but managed to ask what was meant. “In othah words, If you fine me ag’in ah’m goin’ to quit.”—Kansas City Times. Silent Woman. The opposition to the payment of the church tax In Scotland Is occa sionally relieved by a ray of humor. Quite recently Rev. J. Stephenson, president of the Free church council, resolved to face a week’s Incarcera tion rather than submit to taxation. He had no property which could be distrained upon, and on the form which he received on which to state what he was willing to hand over to be sold he wrote: "Self.” In the next column, in which he was required to state the value of the goods, he Inserted: “Wife won’t say.” -London Stand ard. ip c®unr gunk <m FMHHim® hr® PIHULOdDFJ 0r CHARLES MORRIS BUTLER. Ai/tAor of “Tie Cerent* of Tenemen/ 7h3fetfyT^9M!^JEf€i Copyright. 1905. by Charles Morris Butler. cmapteh xxvil.—continued. Before Hawk’s party had traveled very far, Louis perceived how serious a turn affairs had taken and reconsid ered his refusal of Hawks’ aid. "Make some proposition to me, Hawks,” said Louis, “and if it is a reasonable one, I will accept it.” "Too late now, Lang,” replied Hawks, who saw greater advantage in retaining possession of the plate. “I am glad you didn’t take me up be fore. This will make me a great man.” “You forget who I am,” returned Lang. “I am the leader of this insur rection.” “Not by a long shot!” retorted Hawks. “You engineered it—but somebody else will have something to say here beside you—and I think it will be me! By exposing you I can get the upper hand here.” "Your reign will be short. You don't know the strength of the Schiller par ty yet. How do you know but what they are now combining for a return attack and that they will eventually unpower you?" “1 have the bulge either way!” Hawks replied. “If Schiller is in power I can turn you over to him as the leader of the riot. If the convicts are in power, I have the plate to pro tect me.” Louis was about to reply to Hawks, when he felt someone cut his bonds. He never turned to see who it was that was befriending him, nor did he make a motion that would betray him self to Hawks, but kept his arms folded across his back in the same manner as when really tied. He felt a revolver and knife thrust into his belt, and it gave him new courage. Hhough he was in the midst of twenty desperate men, now that he was un bound and armed he felt that he was able to master the situation. He looked about him with calmer eyes than before. His guards were not all armed; one or two had guns, several that treasure In the vault of the treas ury. If I was a free man I’d feel safe only with them in my possession be hind the basement door of that strong building. You are foolish to trust to a mob for payment of services ren dered.” Louis felt someone nudge him, and he knew he was understood. “Never you worry about the plate, Lang,” said Hawks, pompously. “You will have troubles of your own within a minute without interfering with mine.” Louis again relapsed into silence. He measured the chance he had for his life and resolved to die game if he had to. In attempting escape he meant to take the plate with him or fail in the attempt. The success of his undertaking hinged upon the two parties not meeting and effecting con solidation until the treasury door was reached, or as far as Lang was con cerned not meeting at all while he was in the hands of Hawks. It was an even chance of meeting or not meeting. The larger mob was nearer the treasury than Hawks, but they were going slower, fighting and destroying as they went; howling, jumping and generally frenzied, fir ing their guns in the air as they ap proached. The leaders of the insurrection had left plenty of whisky in sight, and the general store had been plundered just before of all the drinkables obtainable. The convicts, maddened by not hav ing their whisky regular, had drunk themselves almost beastly drunk. Nearer the huge body of drunken sots came. ' A hundred yards only separated the two quarreling factions. The treasury building, which both par ties seemed intent on reaching and plundering, lay just between the two flanks. The basement .door, which Louis desired to reach, was a few feet nearer the main party than Hawks. It was like flying into the face of death to take the chance, but it was Louis’ only hope. Felt a stinging blow on his head and fell senseless to the floor. had revolvers, the balance either had knives or clubs. They did not march in order, but straggling off in pairs, were busy talking to one another. No one seemed to be noticing Lang, but rather engrossed with what was trans piring in the center of the town, the other side of the treasury building. Hawks was nearest Lang and was very fully armed, gun, revolver, and bowie knife, but he was handicapped to a certain extent with carrying un der his right arm, and the one nearest Lang, the front and back of the coun terfeit engraving plate. But Hawks alone appeared to look upon Lang as his prisoner. Now and then could be heard the crack of firearms. A blaze here and there could be seen, where an ex ploded shell had burst and set fire to whatever it had struck. The town was full of babbling voices. Once in a while a woman’s screams could be heard, accompanied with noise of shouts and’oaths. Men were hurrying to and fro, some pursuing and others pursued. Hawks’ party was at pres ent in the quietest part of town, but they were rapidly approaching the tur bulent portion, because the fighting party, destroying as they came, were pushing on toward the treasury and the king’s house. At the rate the two factions were traveling, all sections would meet very near the front of the treasury build ing. Louis’ mind was made up. He would try to make his escape into the treas ury building. Lang had made arrange ments to have one of the lower doors left open but guarded. Unless his friends should fail him, he could yet get away from Hawks, and perhaps carry the plates with him. It was because this door had been left open that Jack Regan and Schiller had been able to enter the treasury vaults. It was because they had over powered the sentinel that these two had Jim Denver held at bay at the point of a revolver. But victors are sometimes careless. Jack Regan, smart as he was to gain entrance into the vault, had to leave the doors open behind him, for fear that he and Schiller might have to make a quick return from there, and the way was still clear. Of course Lang did not know this. To the de tective, then the matter of the door being open or not was a case of life or death, and he was forced to nerve himself to the highest tension. He did not wish to leave his unknown friend to act alone and some plans had to be quickly devised in order to notify him of the intention of escap ing. A way presented itself. “Hawks, where are you taking me?’’ Lang demanded. “To the mob,” said Hawks. “Then you really mean to give me up?” “Sure!” Hawks responded coolly. He seemed to take delight in giving out the information. “I think,” said Louis, “if you will allow me to say so, that you are foolish to trust to luck about that plate. If I were you I would place A quick move! Lang drew bis re volver with his left hand, and with his right snatched the plate from un der the arm of Hawks. It seems that at this Instant Louis for the first time was recognized by the mob. As he sprang toward the treasury door a great maddening clamor went up and a hundred guns were fired at him from both gangs. He felt a form at his side keeping pace with him; lie dared not stop to turn to see who it was. Every second he expected to be either felled to earth with a blow from behind or shot down with a well-aimed bullet. But he was traveling fast—the distance now to freedom was short A final spurt. He threw the plates under his left arm and grasped the knob of the door. Less than a second was spent in turning the knob and opening the door, but as he sprang across the threshold he felt a stinging blow on his head and fell senseless to the floor. CHAPTER XXVIII. The Capture of Jim Denver. Louis Lang was laid low by a blow upon the head delivered by Bill Hawks. No sooner had Hawks hit Lang, than Sam Pearson, who bad liberated Lang by cutting his bonds, disabled Hawks by a shot from his re volver. The two. Hawks and Lang, fell far enough outside the door to allow it to swing back and scarco half a minute had elapsed before the door was bolted and made secure against attack. It was just as Lang sprang at the door of the vault, that Jack Regan said: “Throw up your hands, Jim Den ver!” The noise of Louis’ entrance made Regan turn to see who w-as back of him, and the Interruption was fatal to Regan, for Denver drew his revolver and shot the traitorous de tective dead at his feet, the body of the renegade falling through the door way and into the water below! Over the improvised draw bridge came the rangers and in a trice Schiller was overpowered and securely bound. Lang had only been stunned by the blow received and very quickly re covered, in time to assist in plunder ing the treasury. While the mob from the outside were attempting to enter the treasury, the Fjuver gang managed to remove the la*gest part of the gold and no^es. When they left the room the bridge was destroyed and no evidence left of there being any entrance from the rear.. Through the tunnel at con venient intervals were placed bombs with fuse attached which would blow up the tunnel leading toward tbe haunted house. And thus fell Para dise—and by the hands of one man! (To be continued.) Australia’s Woman Lawyer. Miss Grata Greig, the first woman to be admitted to the bar at Mel bourne, recently made her first ap pearance in court. NATIVE NEW YORKERS SCARCE. About One Out of Every Ten in the City Population. Now that thirty “emergency” census Lakers finished the tail end of their work a few days age we may soon have light on an interesting questiop that this enumeration will throw some light upon. Out of Gotham's 4,000,000 souls how many are actual New York ers—persons born in this city? Tak ing the last federal census as a criter ion there is about one “native born" New Yorker out of every ten in popu lation. Still, even this small balm to Knickerbocker families—390,000—per sons—has to be greatly reduced, for in It is included every person of whom no actual knowledge could be obtained of whom the haste of the census tempted to throw under this general heading. Amateur statisticians have decided that there are about 120,000 citizens of New York who have been born of parents natives of this coun try. These delvers in the census re sults are of the opinion that if the qualification were that both their par ents were natives of this country not more than 5,000 persons could aualify as New Yorkers of the second Ameri can generation. Children of parents who were born abroad numbered 1, 375,000 in the last federal census. There were then more than 400,000 Americans here who were born in oth er states, New York state leading with a contribution of 125,000 and New Jer sey following with 56,000; 36,000 were born in Pennsylvania, 25,000 in Mass achusetts, while 22,000—a compara tively large number—were born in Virginia. Therefore the descendants of the Knickerbockers are wofully out numbered in population if not in money and real estate. MONSTER GORILLA OF AFRICA. Huge Animal Believed to Belong to an Unknown Species. Interesting information regarding luge gorillas of hitherto unknown species has been obtained by Eugene Biusseaux, a French official and ex plorer from northern Africa. One of these strange monsters was shot by one of the official's sharpshooters, i’he animal measured 7 feet 6 inches in height, was 4 feet in width across the shoulders and weighed 720 pounds. One of the hands, when dis membered, weighed six pounds. It required the united efforts of eight na tive soldiers to drag the dead body of the beast from the point where it was killed to the French residency at Quessou, the administrative center of central Sangha. The animal was here skinned and buried. Reports have been received at this station frequently during the last few months of the presence of these big creatures in the upper valleys of Lo nani and Sangereh, but hitherto it had been impossible to come to close quarters with them. According to na tive reports, however, the animals are usually ferocious, not hesitating to at tack caravans during their passage ‘hrough the country. These gorillas differ essentially from others. The ears are small, the shoulders and thighs are covered with dense and long black hair, while the chest and stomach are almost bare. It is believed that they belong to a species that has not heretofore been seen by white men. Time. Time a thief? No, never! Time's an honest wight, Gracious, tender, clever. Far from dark affright. What he takes is taken Not in wrath and gloom; For the fruit that's shaken, Other fruit will bloom! For the raven tresses And the lire of youth, Children's soft caresses—• Fair exchange, i' sooth! For ambition's pleasure, In the days of dearth Wisdom comes to measure What ambition’s worth! For the hasty learning And ill tempered zeal. Tolerance discerning Time will us reveal! For the sole reliance. Bruited loud abroad. On the strength of science. Comes the thought of God! For the shining morning Of the pleasant day. Eve, with its adorning. White and pearl and gray; For the rays of sunshine At the morning's bars. Come (how more than one shine!) Night’s unnumbered stars! —New Orleans Times-Democrat. Whitebait Are Really Baby Fish. Whitebait, named rogenia alba by Valenciennes, the French naturalist, who held that it is a distinct genus of the herring family, was regarded by later authorities as merely the fry of the herring. It seems now, however, to be established that the fry of all the British clupeidoe—the pilchard, the sprat, and the shad—and probably other small fry, are taken and used under the name whitebait. These delicate and silvery baby fish are taken in great abundance in spring and summer in tbe estuary of the Thames. They are caught in bag nets, which are sunk four or five feet below the surface of the water, and usually measure from an inch to three inches in length. A sample of white bait has been tested by development in an aquarium, proving that they are fry of several sorts of fish. “Cy” Silloway Would Dig ’Em Up. “Cy” Silloway, the tall New Hamp shire congressman, was visiting a friend who was making extensive im provements on his estate in Dover, when the following incident occurred: There was a scarcity of sand and loam, which was needed to fill in an excavation, and his host asked the congressman: “What shall I use to fill that hole?” "Oh, if you haven’t the dirt, fill in with some of these diggers, and cover them deep," answered “Cy.” “Yes,” spoke up one of the diggers, “an’, begorra, nixt election time ye’ll be ’round diggin' us up.” Stupid Jeweler. Miss Inez Entz—Yes, Mr. Fickle proposed last night and we’re engag ed, now. I’m so* happy; and I’m the first girl George ever loved, too. Miss Wise—Yes? I don't notice your ring. Didn’t he give you one? Miss Inez Entz—Yes, but, you see, he had to take it back to have it fix ed. The stupid jeweler made the in scription read, “George to Genevieve” instead of “George to Inez.”- -Catholic Standard and Times. FLED BEFORE WOMAN’S PISTOL Haw Mrs. Reader Put Stop to Impu dence of Peruvian. In her story of “Ella Rawls Reader. Financier,” contributed in Every body’s, Juliet Wibor Tompkins tells the following incident of a struggle of Mrs. Reader’s In Peru: “After eight months of useless struggle she went to out Callao, which is about half an hour by rail from Lima, with her Peruvian lawyer. Scotch interpreter, and American en gineer, and forced the manager to open the warehouses and let her make an inspection of the machinery. The manager had met her with his law yers, and the hour for argument be fore she gained her point had been something of a strain. During the whole process a Peruvian on the Hag gin side had been standing close to Mrs. Reader, his little, narrowed eyes staring with that deliberate insolence only Latins can accomplish. The company went out Into the wareroom where the machinery lay and the dif ficult business of a hurried insp«?ction went forward, but still the bullying stare never ceased. After about two hours of it, the fine edge of that hid den temper of her sudden'y sprang up. She whirled on him with a blaze of words that needed no interpreter, and all at once his stare was being re turned by a fierce little pistol held in a strong white hand and quite ready for business. “The gentleman of Peru neither apologized nor retracted; he incon tinently fled. And he was not the only one. Like shadows the men flitted out of the dusky warehouse, leaving the dangerous woman a clear field. When she looked about there was no one in sight but two Irish porters, and in their eyes were sympathetic twin kles, meeting which, Mrs. Reader could only sink down helpless with laughter and put up her pistol.” The Dentist and the Alligator. Roy Farrell Greene, the president of the American Society of Curio Col lectors, told at a dinner of dentists an appropriate story. "A dentist,” he said, "was once traveling in the East, and n the Ganges his boat overturned and he was obliged to strike out for the shore. ‘‘As the dentist swam sturdily through the muddy water an enor mous alligator suddenly rose up be fore him. The alligator opened its enormous jaws, and the next instant would have been the dentist’s last, only—just in time—the man hap pened to notice the great reptile’s sharp, white teeth, and an idea struck him. “He drew a probe from his pocket, and, pressing it into the alligator's gums, he said: “ ‘Does this hurt you?’ “The alligator screamed with pain, and the dentist, amid its great agony, made good his escape.”—Philadelphia Inquirer! Wall Street Honesty. John Alexander Dowie, before he set out for his Mexican colony, talked about Wall street honesty. In con clusion he said: “Yes, my friend, the honesty of these financiers reminds me of that of the tramp who found a purse. “Two tramps entered a railroad sta tion to get a drink of ice water, and one of them, seeing a richly-dressed woman drop her pocket book, picked it up and returned it to her. “His companion was enraged and shocked. “ ‘Don’t you know better.’ he cried, ‘that to give back a purse like that? Why didn't you keep it for yourself, you dolt?’ “ ‘Ah, John,’ said the other, ‘hon esty is the best policy when a police man is lookin', an', besides, there was nothin’ in the purse.’ ” To Point a Moral. Almost everything he had Th:< should make a person glad Just to be alive; good friends. Health, position, all that lends Happiness to most of us— I should have been happy thus! Life he loved for Its own sake. And he hoped to live to make Others set his point of view. And be optimistic, too. Then one day. a little worry. Caused his mind a minute’s flurry; He dismissed it—It returned Every hour. And then he learned That It would not down unsolved. As his dally task revolved This small problem Interfered. With his work, an* it appeared Each day larger than before. So it grew and more and more. Colored all hfs speech and thought; Other ideas shrunk to naught. Day and night this worry fed On his soul, unuuieted. Till its everlasting pain Broke his heart and wrecked his brain. When he killed himself, at last. All who knew him were aghast Save the one sho d caused his worry. (And forgot it in a hurry;) That one said: “Did you know, my dear, I always did think he was—iiueer!' —Cleveland Leader. Too Late to Sort Cats. Jim Crocker lived in an old tum ble-down house in a little town in Massachusetts. The cellar windows being broken out, an opportunity was afford to stray cats to run in and out, and sometimes there would be quite a congregation. We lost our pet cat one evening, and thinking she might have joined the happy throDg, we sent our man over to ask “Uncle Jin.” if he would take a look and see if she was among the number. He was generally pretty good-natured, but this time he was out of sorts, for he said: “Your cat may be there, or she may not be, but I ain’t a-going to light up no lamp and go down in that cellar this time of night sorting out cats for nobody, so there.” His Father Was Athlete. Dr. Dudley of Abington, Mass., tells this story of his man David and his housekeeper, who had great con fidence in all that David said and did: One day David was in the barn, do ing something which caused a visitor to say: “You’re quite an athlete, aren’t you?” “Well, yes,” replied David: where upon the housekeeper, who stood near, said: “Why, I thought you told me you was Scotch.” “Well,” said David, "my mother was Scotch, but my father was ath lete.” Plans Railroad in Africa. The Portuguese government will build a railroad from Delagoa bay to Swaziland. That adds one more to th» many "openings up” in Africa.
