ALL READY Mickey Finns Big Fire Cracker . _■ ■■. ■ The explosion that wound up the Fourth of July Celebration oa Cooney Island. Two mammoth firecrackers stood in , the window of Casey’s grocery. They were 12 inches long and proportion ately thick. For a month before the Fourth of July these gigantic indicators of en thusiasm had stood in the window like British soldiers on dress parade, while a predatory spider hung a filmy ham mock between them and calmly killed his buzzing victims over two powder mines. The firecrackers were the ‘admira tion and the envy of all the boys in Cooney Island. It was seldom that a youthful nose was not flattened against the window pane in ardent covetous ness. But the price demanded by Casey for the thunderers was prohibitive, so far as the boys were concerned, and there was not one of them patriotic or courageous enough to invest 25 cents in a single ecstatic explosion. Said Mickey Finn timidly one even ing when he had been sent by his mother to get a quarter of a pound of tea and half a pound of pork: “Mr. Casey, I suppose now, that whin wan o' thim big fellows wint off it would blow the stars out of the sky?” his rpind filled with blissful thoughts of mighty explosions. Casey stopped measuring out a half pint of New Orleans molasses, raised a monitor finger, and replied: “Micky, my boy, I’d be afeerd to tell you what would happen if I stood wan o’ thim big fellows out on the side walk and touched the stem wid the lighted end of a five cent ciga-ar. The noise would be terrible, tefribie, my son. 'Twould make your head ring like an anvil, and you would see sparks like fireflies. “Would it blow the house down?" asked the boy in an awed whisper. “No, I don’t think it would,” said Casey. “It might shake the chimly down and brehk all the glass in the In Ardent Covetousness. windys in small pieces, and there would be paper in the streets as would fill an impty barrel o’ flour. Oh,, but thim bijf fellows is mighty power ful, Micky, mighty powerful. They use them In China to kill murderers I and robbers. They put wan o’ thim big firecrackers bechune the teeth of a murderer and make him light the fuse wid his own hand and blow his own head off. Thifc Chinese is mighty crool, Mickey, mighty crool.” This vivid description inflamed Mick ey's desire, which was Casey’s motive in telling it, for the incident occurred on the eve of the Fourth, and Casey was afraid that the big firecrackers would be carried over the national hol iday and remain a loss on his hands. In order to deepen the impression al ready made upon the boy Casey per mitted him to handle one of the twins. The boy’s eyes had widened to their utmost capacity when be was outside the window, but mow that he could feel the red jacket his hands trembled with the eagerness of pos session and he would have given ten years cf his life to own it. “Take it along wid you, Mickey,” said Casey, cajolipgly. “Thim crack ers were made in Chow Qhow, in China, for the Cooney Island trade, and I want to get rid of thim I have on hand before I send another order to Wan Lung, the haythin.” “But I have no money,” said Mick ey sorrowfully. “My father is goin’ to give me three bunches of little fire crackers and a pinwheel, but I know he wouldn’t buy wan o’ thim big fire crackers for me.” “Well, continued Casey* “you come down here to-morrov' mornin' and carry in a half ton of coal for me and I'll give you the big cracker.” The next morning Mickey was busy for two hours carrying chestnut coal : 1 a nail keg and dumping it in Casey's cellar. Just after noon, with a smile covered with coal dust and a bosom tall of chuckles, he received his prize. No grass grew under his bare feet as he ran homeward, the precious powder mine clasped to his bosom. Holding the big firecracker aloft as he darted through the kitchen door, he exclaimed: “Mother, I have it! Ain’t it a beauty?” “Well, I don’t see anything about it to be makin’ a fuss over,” said Mrs. Finn, who, like most mothers, had no love for fireworks. “Now, don’t be bringin’ it nearer to me, as Mickey ran toward her. “I don’t want to be blown into the middle o’ next week. 'Throw the dirty thing away! I’m afeered me life while you have it in your hands! Now, don’t be goin’ near the stove wid it! Arrah, ye little spalpeen, will ye take it off the stove? Take it off afore ye blow the roof off the house!" and the frightened woman ran into the bedroom and peered through the keyhole. With the recklessness of boyhood, Mickey exclaimed, as he lit a match and reduced his mother to hysterics by pretending to light the firecracker stem: “You needn’t be afeered, mother. I’ll nip it out afore it goes off.” In this simple fashion the afternoon of the Fourth passed away in the Finn household varied by the boy with oc casional visits to the neighbors, whom he threw into a panic of fear by pre tending to light the big explosive. Mrs. Murphy and her three children were gathered around the kitchen table when Mickey placed the lighted mammoth in the middle of the table. Two of the boys went head first through the window, while Mrs. Mur phy tried to crawl under the kitchen stove. All this excitement afforded the boy a good deal of delight, but he re served for the evening the culmina tion of his joy. He intended to blow his father up as he sat in his chair on the back stoop. Mickey thought it would be an in spiring sight to witness his father fly ing across the back yard and plow ing up the ground w;th his nose. In order that he might have an audience appropriate to so groat an occasion, Mickey had spread the news among all the boys of the neighborhood, and at nine o’clock 60 hoys sat on the fence surrounding the back yard. Mr. Finn, tired of the excitement of the day, had fallen asleep in his rocking chair on the back stoop, when Mickey lit the stem of the big cracker and placed it carefully under his father’s chair. The moon shone brightly, illuminat ing the grin on every boyish face. Every ear was strained to catch the faint hissing of the fuse and every eye intent upon the sleeping man. The fuse burned Itself out, and the silence and suspense was deepening. I Had Fallen Asleep. A minute passed and another, until Mickey could stand the strain no long er. He reached down and lifted the firecracker from beneath the chair. As he held it up In the moonlight to examine it, a mosquito lit upon his father’s nose and the old gentleman awoke. Grabbing the firecracker from his son’s hand he arose and holding it aloft, he said: “Boys, there will be no explosion to-night. I'm sorry to disappoint you. I was afeered that Mickey might do some harrum wi ..T- . «’ - V. v * -a. _ , they get interested in any phase of higher education they begin to im prove their manners. They want to learn what to oat and how to eat it, what to say and how to say it, when do get up and when to sit down, and all the rest of the usages of polite society. Since most of this knowledge is gained from books it pays the push cart peddler to keep them in stock.” Though we travel the world over to find the beautiful, we must carry it with us, or we find it not. mmmm S= ccumamzit Of all the explorers of the arctic Commander Robert E. Peary has been the most consistent, persistent, and systematic, and thereby has won the universal sympathy of the people of the United States, as well as of other countries, and as he announces his plans and prepares for another ad vance upon the elusive pole which lies 174 miles beyond the far northern most point he has been able to reach yet, it finds the public interest even keener than ever. To some degree I this may be due to the other expedi tions which have started out or are about to start out in quest of the north pole, notably, of course, the Wellman balloon venture, and the question is being asked: “Is the prize to be stolen right from under the nose of the intrepid Peary, after he has tried so bravely four times to gain it for himself and while he is oc cupied with his fifth expedition?” For an answer we must wait develop ments, one year, two years, perhaps more. But one discovery which Peary made on his last expedition gives en couragement for the belief that suc cess will crown his last venture, and that was the finding of the course of drift in. the arctic basin. Peary un questionably is the best equipped man who ever sought the pole. He was bitterly disappointed, indeed, in not having success crown his efforts on liis fourth trip. That he went further than man ever went before; that he had to turn back at a time when it seemed that the great triumph was so near, is not enough. Out of that fail ure he believes he discovered the road to victory. He does not predict success. He is not of that kind. He knows better than perhaps any other man the tre mendous odds that must be overcome, but he banks on the experience he has gained, and if good fortune attends him there is a chance, just a chance, that he will bring back to America a story that will thrill the world and put his name in letters big on his tory’s page. Few persons realize how minutely Commander Peary looks after the smallest details of the equipment for the sledge journey that marks the final advance across the ice of the Polar basin. From the time he put the Roosevelt against the ice foot on the north coast of Grant land in Sep-, tember, 1905, until he made the actual start across the ice in February, 1906, there was not a waking moment of all the days in that interval that he was not studying the problem and working it out at the same time of just how little he could tatye across the ice on the sledges of his several parties and sustain their lives and those of the necessary dogs. He knew the stern necessity of get ting the outfit down to the smallest compass and the lightest possible weight. A matter of a few pounds on the sleds would make all the differ ence in the world at the crucial mo ment. It might swing the balance between success and failure, life and death. And it was to eliminate just such an over-burden that he worked for so long. How vital this matter of weight is he shows in his story of the escape across the open lead that stretched its Styx-like width of black water between his party and the sblid ice beyond on their enforced retreat from their furthest north last spring. One of his Eskimos discovered that a thin coating of ice had formed across this expanse of water that he believed would support the party. It was that or death, in all probability, and so Peary resolved to try it. With their eyes fixed on the ice before them, ice so thin that it swayed with their weight as they advanced across it, they moved their snowshoes steadi ly forward, not knowing when the next step might be their last, as it surely would have been if anyone had gone through into the water beneath. When Peary finally reached the solid ice to the southward he echoed the opinion of one of the Eskimos .that if any one in the party had been just a little heavier or had they been bur dened with a little more weight they never would have made the passage which meant their salvation. “With the experience I gained in my last voyage,” the .explorer says, “I am going over precisely the same route that I followed with the Roose velt. But when I leave the ship for the dash across the Polar basin I am going to strike further to the west ward so that the drift of the ice to the eastward, which was one of the most important things I discovered in my last voyage, will carry me direct ly toward the pole. Heretofore it was the general impression that the ice in the Polar basin drifted to the west ward, but we found it was just the reverse of this. By striking off to the west, and then veering around in a quarter circle toward the northeast, I think my course will carry me direct ly to the pole.” Then, he added, as if that dismissed the subject forever, “Then I mean to head directly for the north coast of Greenland, from which it will be only a few miles across the channel to the north shore of Grant land, where the Roosevelt will be in her winter quarters.” In these few words he discussed his plan, a plan that means leaving New York about July 1, taking his real de parture from North Sydney ten days later, picking up his Eskimo men, women and children around Melville Bay in another ten days, taking on his last supply of coal at Etah, sailing from that place and dropping all touch with the civilized world at the same time within a month from the time he answers the last farewell “toot, toot,” of some grimy tugboat in the East river. After leaving Etah he expects it will take less than a month before he will again berth the ' Roosevelt against the icefoot along the northeast coast of Grant land. And then will be before Peary and his crew of 20 men, his Eskimo and his dogs the seven months of constant preparation before the final stage of the final dash across the ice of the Polar basin begins. In only one respect will his “outfit” for this journey differ from that of his last one, but this is a detail on which he counts not 6nly for making better , time, but also to make the Roosevelt even more reliable a ship than she has already proved herself to be. This is the fitting of her engine room with a full “battery” of Scotch boilers In place of the two boilers which gave him so much trouble on his last trip. High Price for Necklace. Five thousand pounds were paid at Christie’s auction rooms, London, re cently, for a necklace. It was com posed of 14 emeralds, six large pearls and 80 marquise-shaped brilliants. HE EARNED HIS MONEY. Extra Quarter Not Too Great Com pensation For “Pester.” Mr. Huckins was trying to make over a screen door for the widow Jennings. The day was hot and muggy and she hung over him all day with questions, suggestions and com plaints. “Aren’t you getting that too nar row?” asked The widow, hovering over the carpenter in a way suggestive of some large, persistent insect. -“No, ma’am,” said Mr. Huckins. “You know a few minutes ago you thought- ’twas too wide, and I meas ured it to show ye.” “Oh, yes,” said Mrs. Jennings. “Well, anyway, I ..believe it’ll sag'if you don’t change the hinge. Just hold it up and see.” Mr. Huckins held the door in place and proved that the hinges were in the right spots, and after that Mrs. JenningB kept silence for a few mo ments. “O dear,” she said, grasping Mr. Huckins’ hand after the short respite, “I’m sure you planed it off so the flies can get ip at the top! Please hold it up again and I’ll just get a chair and see of a fly could squeeze through. You may have to add a piece.” When it had been proved that not even the smallest and most enterpris ing fly .could find entrance space there was another short respite. After that Mrs. Jennings once more had an alarm over the possibility that the door might stick somewhere. When at last it was hung and Mr. Huckins was ready to depart, the widow asked him for his bill. “I don’t make out any bills,’* said Mr. Huckins, wearily, “but I’ll i;ell ye what this work’ll cost. If I’d done it under the ordinary circumstances I have to contend with ’twould have been 50 cents, but in this case I’ll have to charge ye an extry quarter, ma’am, for pester.”—Youth’s Compan ion. : President Fallieres, of France, is ex ceedingly thrifty. He spends an little as possible of his liberal allowance of $600,000 per annum. . ..., s