ocnoxxx oxocxxxo i tTWO RINGS- 9 OOCCCCCOOCXsuCX Carson I said Involuntarily stoop ing to knock the ash from my cigar perhaps I ought not to ask although I have known you for nearly three years but is it usual for a wife to wear two wedding rings Dead silence He had just lowered bis violin after a very soft solo for it was considerable past midnight when I ventured that curious question There had been an evening party and as I was to stay at the house till morning Carsons wife had said Good night and left us to finish our inevita ble smoke and talk His mouth twitch ed a little but it was some time before be retorted in a low tone Is is usual for a man well under 40 to have hair as white as mine Well perhaps not but I thought you attributed that to some shock or ithcr What has that to do with with the two rings Everything lie listened at the door for a moment turned down the lights and then came and sat down spreading his hands over the fire Two rings Exactly one is the ring I put on her finger when I married her the second was put there by another man and will stay there as long as the first Never mind now I said His voice liad trailed off huskily J bad no idea there was any tragic element behind tko fact Tragic Heavens It was more than that Arthur he whispered turn ing up a drawn face I never meant to touch upon it but when you spoke it came back with a Tush as vivid as if I had been standing at the mouth of the old north shaft again And that was six years ago Youve heard me speak at least of the mine itself the Langley mine in Derbyshire I had only been assistant surveyor at the pits there for about nine months when it happened At 9 oclock that morning Arthur three of us stepped into the cage old Jim Halliday the foreman his son Jim and myself the men had gone down an hour before I shall never forget that young Jims sweetheart had walked over to the pit with him as she occasionally did They were to be married in a week or two and she and she had on her finger the ring he had bought in Derby the day before just for safetys sake -or perhaps out of womanly pride i recollect that just as the chain clanked and the winter sunshine was disappearing overhead he shouted out a third Good by to her little dream ing that it was to be good by Little enough old Halliday and I thought that days would elapse before we emerged into Gods sunlight again A new vein had been bored the year before and then abandoned because it ran in the direction of the river We three had had instructions to widen it for a space of o00 yards a piece of work that had occupied us nearly a month Old Jim picked and young Jim wheeled the coal away to the nearest gallery from where it was carried over rails to the bottom of the main shaft Well by 4 oclock that afternoon we calculated roughly that we had the limit laid down I think its as near as ossible 31 r Carson old Halliday said Jim give another count we dont want the water coming in Jim went back We could hear him singing out the paces in his light-hearted fashion as he returned his voice echoing through the long galleries pooh youre miles off it dad lie was only a score of years off though Two-sixty-nine two-seventy-four Itll allow a full twenty yet I reckon He had just finished his count when but there no man could properly de scribe it It was something one had to realize for himself before he could un derstand a bare half of the sudden He was the first to come back to sense He gave one choking cry of Jim and staggered back to that black pile The boys hand was sticking out from the bottom of it clutching con vulsively at nothing I sat down and watched in a sort of dreary fascina tion as old Jim uttering strange cries tore at the mass in a mad frenzy God help him Jim was the only thing he had in the world to love In less than live minutes ho had dragged him out and sat down to hug him in his arms Dead No he could just open his poor dust filled ejes in answer to his fathers whispers but we knew at once that he would never again make the galleries echo his piercing whistle For whole hours I suppose neither of us attempted to realize our situation We sat on in the dead silence waiting for something to happen Once or twice we saw young Jims blackened lips move feebly and each time his father would mutter brokenly Ay my precious boy well look after her Once the old man broke out quiver ingly into the hymn Abide with Me but he got no further than the third line That perhaps was about 8 oclock but we could keep no count of the time as my watch had stopped Hour after hour must have gono by and still old Jim sat with rigid face and staring eyes clasping his burden In all probability it was morning above ground before at last he spoke How long can we hold out Mr Car son Im feared to go Ive been a godless man all my time That aroused me I examined our position carefully The passage was about eight yards wide at this point and measured about twenty paces from the end to where that solid wall of coal blocked our path to the outer world As the bore ran level with the foot of the north shaft we were about forty feet below the clear surface We had no food and our lamps would burn say another five or six hours while the breathing air hot and gaseous al ready would probably become unen durable before the evening came That was our situation and let any man con ceive a worse if he can One slender chance of escape at the best left per haps the entire passage was not block ed and we might force our way to the main gallery I was not afraid of death in the way that it comes to most people but I was afraid to meet and struggle with it there We sprang to the task wild at the thought that those few hours of stupor might have made all the difference You can guess what happened and why after a long spell of fighting to break through that horrible wall old Jim threw himself down with a groan and refused to go on As fast as we loosened one mass another crashed down in its place at the end of our desperate attempt we were half choked and blinded with dust our hands were raw and we had made scarce any headway Barely too had we given up the work as hopeless when my lamp flick ered out half an hour later old Jims followed suit Total oblivion As I sat and con templated our fate a faintuess of min gled hunger and despair crept over me Young Jim quite still was propped up against the wall close by Within a few feet of me sat his father at times he would start up and shriek out in nameless terror at others ho would catch up his pick and hack at the walls with the fury of a maniac And worse was to come I think I must have fainted I do not seem to recollect more until the moment when I became conscious of my mates hard breathing over me and of the fact that his hand was feeling or so it seemed for my throat I dashed away panting under the shock of this new horror Jim I gasped for heavens sake keep sane If were to go let us die terror that whitened our lips and seem- like men ed to bring our hearts to a standstill There was a rumbling in one of the distant galleries and a sickening trem ble of the ground underneath us then then the most paralyzing sound I do believe that is to be heard in this world How or why it happened is some thing to be placed among the host of unsolved mysteries but there was one grinding splintering roar as though the earth had split in two pieces Before we could stir hand or foot to save ourselves before we could even tal n in that an explosion had occurred while we were guarding against an other sort of danger down thundered a mass of coal tons upon tons of it that blocked up the only passage leading to the shaft It just reached young Jim standing -where he did he was struck down we heard his screech stifled beneath the debris For about five more sec onds the earth seemed to be heaving and threatening universal chaos then all became still as a tomb A tomb We had our lamps old Jim and t looked and saw that we were cut off from the rest of the world What happened next I hardly know I was stupefied with the shock sick with a mortal fear of death He and I stood staring mutely at each other The one thing I recollect is that his face was gray as marblp and that a line of froth stead on his lips No answer i nearu mm crawling away and that was all The dead silence was only broken by a faint trickling sound Trickling Yes I put my hand to the level and found half an inch of water and hot ter and more stifling grew the atmos phere Praying hard to myself I re alized now that should no help come only a few hours could live betwixt us and the end And then old Jim might go first and I should be left Nay I was already practically alone the fear that was slowly whitening my hair and turned old Jims brain He suddenly sent xin a peal of de lirious laughter Water Who says water Why mates Im swimming in it Heres a go Presently he began creeping round find me I could hear him coming by his labored respiration and swish ing of the ooze as he moved Round and round the space we went stealthily until at last he made a cun ning rush and caught me by the ankle Got him He yelled it with a glee that was unmistakable Mere words could never convey the sensation of that moment Half suf focated past all ordinary fear I closed with my poor old mate and we went staggering to and fro across our prison until at last I managed to throw him so that his head struck heavily against the wall After that he lay quite still I be lieved at the time that I had killed him but we knew afterward that it was that biow which preserved his reason The rest can be told In a few words After that I lay there like one in a dream while the pestilential air slowly did its work Sometimes I fancied I could feel cool breezes blowing down on me and at others heard some one telling me to wake ui for the whistle had sounded at the pits How loiig I lay so I can only con jecture I really knew nothing more until I was roused by the sound of that coal barrier crashing down before the picks and spades of a dozen rescuers and the hubbub from a dozen throats as they broke into our tomb Only just time Old Jims face was only just out of the water and they said that no human being could have lived in that atmosphere for another two hours And young Jim well there was just enough life left in him to lost three days Till the end of that third day I kept to my bed and then they sent to say that ho was going but that he wished to see me first I reached the house in time to catch his last whis per You youll take her mate Marry her no one else Only only youll let my ring stay there Promise me that What could I do but promise I had no thought then of marrying his sweetheart but it was his dying wish and for years Jim and I had been like brothers Just a year later I asked her if there was any room in her heart for me and and well thats enough Now you know why my wife wears two wedding rings Saturday Evening Post When Grant Visited Japan There was no pageant in General Grants journey round the world more imposing than the reception given by the Mikado at Japans capital writes John Russell Young in the Ladies Home Journal The United States steamer Richmond bearing General Grant and his party steamed into Yo kohama the harbor of Tokyo escorted by the Ashuelot and a Japanese man-of-war on July 3 1879 There was as sembled a fleet of war ships of other powers At noon the Admirals barge flying General Grants flag as ex-President and conveying the General and his wife Prince Dati Minister Bing ham and Minister Yoshida slowly pushed for the shore and on the instant every naval vessel manned yards and fired the American national salute The day was as beautiful as days of which we dream a blue cloudless sky a soothing lapping sea The sudden transformation from this sleepy lazy silent summer day into the turbulence and danger of war the roar of cannon the music every band playing an American air the manned yards the officers on deck in full dress and salut ing the barge as it passed the cheers of the multitude thronging the shore the fantastic day fire works the can non smoke banking into clouds the barge moving with slow steady stroke all formed a brilliant and extraordinary scene As the Admiralty steps were approached there in waiting stood the Imperial Princes the Ministers and the high officials of the realm in the splendor of their rank and station As the General stepped on shore the Jap anese guns thundered their greeting the bands played The Star Spangled Banner and Mr Iwakura the vener able Prime Minister advanced and taking the Generals hand In the name of the Emperor welcomed him to Jap an Reaching Tokyo after an hour in the train the city authorities met us with an address and the Mikados state carriage through a continuous double line of Infantry standing at present conveyed the General to the Imperial Palace of Enriokwan Different Numes for Waves They have curiously different names for waves about the coast of Great Britain The Teterhead folk call the large breakers that fall with a crash on the beatxi by the grim name of Nor rawa Norway carpenter On the low Lincolnshire coast as on the southwest ern Atlantic fronting shore of these islands the gradually long unbroken waves are known as rollers Among East Anglians a heavy surf tumbling In with an offshore wind or In a calm is called by the expressive name of a slog while a well marked swell roll ing in independently of any blowing is called a home There Is no wind a Suffolk fisherman will say but a nasty home on the beach Suffolk men also speak of the bark of the surf and a sea covered with foam Is spoken of as feather white The foam itself Is known as spoon drift So in the vernacular we have it The sea was all a feather white with spoon drift New York Marine Journal Strange Indeed On the battlefield of an Irish doctor named OReilly was attend ing to the wounds of the British solJ diers A young guardsman doing active ser vice for the first time had got a sword cut on his arm what an old soldier would call a scratch Tommy Atkins was crying out Oh doctor my arm I shall die Dr OReilly getting tired of his moaning called out Be aisy wid yer noise now sure yere makin more noise than that poor feller down there wid his head cut off Japans Navy Japan is going to spend 40000 in putting twelve young Japanese dents through a three years course of study of naval architecture and ma rine engineering in England They will work as gentlemen apprentices with the great shipbuilding firms As you grow older strawberries taate more watery ApSf Once upon a time a man who needed the aid of Fontenelle went to the great philosopher and began an apology for a pamphlet he had written against him Fontenelles withering answer was Sir this is the first time I have heard of it Leo the Thirteenth was greatly in de mand as a diner out while filling the office of nuncio at Brussels Always severe in matters of propriety he was deeply offended by a baron who passed him a snuff box on the lid of which was enameled a feminine finger en des habille Controlling his annoyance his future holiness replied Very pretty Is it your wife When William J Stillman was In Greece for the London Times a report was sent out that he had been behead ed One of his friends telegraphed to the correspondent this message Ru mor here that your head has been taken off Is it true The message reached Stillman and this was his re ply My dear boy a newspaper man never loses his head When Mr Hunter the Confederate Secretary of State referred to the cor respondence between Charles the First and Parliament as a precedent for a negotiation between a constitutional ruler and rebels Lincoln replied Up on matters of history I must refer you to Mr Seward for he is posted in such things and I dont profess to be but my only distinct recollection of the mat ter is that Charles lost his head There was once a mathematical tutor In one of our great universities who was in the habit of boasting that he neither knew nor cared to know any thing about poets or poetry and con sidered it all a lot of unpractical rot A certain brother tutor anxious to con vert him gave him the famous Charge of the Light Brigade to read The mathematician took it up and began to read aloud thus Half a league half a league half a league Then he banged the book down exclaiming Impatiently Well if the fool meant a league and a half why on earth didnt he say so James Russell Lowell when Ameri can minister to England was much bothered by the wife of an American Senator who was determined to be presented at court The woman was noisy illiterate and socially impossi ble but she was the wife of a Senator There came a time when the minister worn out with her importunities was about to capitulate in that hour of weakness however he chanced to over hear his persecutor say to a friend re garding a dressmakers bill which had just come in When I see the size of that bill I just laid back and yelled The lady was not presented A privately printed volume about the famous Athenaeum Club in London just issued has some stories about bishops many of whom are members of it One is of a clerical dignitary who being anxious to consult one of the fathers on a theological point asked a servant of the club if Justin Martyr was in the library I dont think hes a member my lord was the answer but Ill go and ask the por ter The curious behavior of a bishop is thus described by an eye witness As I stood talking outside the Athe naeum the other day I saw a bishop a humble suffragan drive up in a hansom and bid the unpaid cabman wait while he went into the club A minute or twro later out came a real bishop who guilelessly got into the waiting hansom and being mistaken by the cabman for his original fare was straightway driven off Then issued the suffragan whose inquiries for his cab led to his being informed by a second cabman that it had been taken by another gent in leggings The Chinese Vote The Chinese vote will soon be a political feature in California In San Franciscos filthy Chinatown an infan tile army has been reared There are not less than 2000 native sons and daughters in San Franciscos China town in whose veins Chinese blood flows and who are lawful heirs of American citizenship A small army of Mongols is marching leisurely along the dusty highway of time toward the ballot box Not later than the year 1920 at the present birth rate in Chinatown and supposing average conditions regard ing mortality to obtain it is as clear as ajrything can be that something like 2500 Chinese children will be entitled to the ballot in San Francisco alone Sacramento Stockton Los Angeles San Jose and in fact nearly all com munities in California have also their native born Mongolian babies who are on their way to citizenship Cowardice of Alligators The cowardice of alligators is well known by the people who reside along the bayous which were at one time f re quenited by the saurians said a gen tleman from Southwestern Louisiana A great mauy persons who only know of the alligator by reputation swallow without a qualm the stories which are so often told about the hairbreadth es capes and remarkable adventures with these reptiles The truth is that they do not possess sufficient courage the aligators I mean to attack a mouse unless it was chained to a bank and couldnt show light I remember crossing a stream in the Vermillion country a number of years before the craze for alligator hides had struck the country I entered a skiff and when about half way over my dog which I had forgotten came bounding after me and leaping into the water began to swim across after the boat Almost immediately several al ligators lying with the tips of their noses above the surface began to move after the dog and soon came within a few feet of the animal He realized that he was being chased and proceed ed to turn the tables by chasing them He barked and turned to make for the gators but they got out of the way Well the dog and the saurians kept up this performance until the former had crossed the stream The alliga tors seemed to be afraid to come within biting distance although it would have been impossible for the dog to have injured them They were simply afraid thats all and it is always the way with them I have frequently swam after an alligator myself and he would invariably turn tail and get out of sight in a hurry Courage They have no more than a goat A WONDERFUL CHANGE What the South Is Now and What It Was Twenty Years AcO Where the proud city of Birmingham stands to day there were in 1S77 only worn out fields Chattanooga was a dilapidated village Atlanta still sat in the ashes of the war Florida was al most as much of a wilderness as in thu days of Spanish rule Texas had made no impression upon the worlds markets as a cotton producer The States of Louisiana Mississippi and Arkansas were in poverty and despair because of the miseries of the reconstruction period The coal and iron mines of Tennessee Alabama and Virginia wera practically undiscovered and unopen ed There was no serious competition by any southern port with New York and Boston for the export and import trade With a single exception there was not one great railroad system in the South and that did not touch the southeastern part Twenty years ago the manufacture of cotton in the South was wholly an infant industry and cities now known as textile working centers were mere trading posts at the cross roads The fruit and vegetable business of Florida was so small as to attract little atten tion while the fruit and melon busi ness of Georgia did not exist at all Southern farmers then bought their corn and meats instead of raising them as thej1 do now and the cotton crop of Georgia notwithstanding the compar atively low prices and notwithstanding the cities have absorbed so much of he rural population is twice as large as it was then In a Balloon A dim sunlight strikes us in the bal loon Suddenly we realize we are in bright sunshine again with fleecy white clouds below us and a deep sky above Look at the shadow of the bal loon on the clouds See the light pris matic colors like a halo around the shadow of the car Here we are all alone in perfect silence in the depths of a great abyss massive clouds tow ering up on all sides a snowy white mass below But no sign of earth no sign of anything human Not a sound not a sign of life What peace What bliss Horrors Whats that report The balloon must have burst Oh non sense Keep still Its only a fold of the stuff nipped by the netting being suddenly released thats all Well we are falling for see the bits of paper apparently ascending And we must take care for the coldness and dampness of this cloud will cause the gas to contract and we shall fall rapidly So get a bag of ballast ready for we are already in the darkness of the cloud Now the gas bag shrinks and writhes and the loose folds rustle together and it gets darker You can feel the breeze blowing upward against your face or hand held over the edge of the car Well thats not to be won- dered at for remember we are falling say a thousand feet a minute which is the same thing as if we were going along ten miles an hour sitting in a dogcart Not quite the same you say youd sooner be in the cart Well per haps if the horse were going straight at a wall without the possibility of being able to stop him you would think otherwise But look There is the earth again so out with your ballast Go on Pour out plenty theres no good economizing Sale of Tjanclseers Sir Edwin Landseers A Piper ana a Pair of Nutcrackers was sold re cently in London for S13o and his Eager Terrier for 2S35 a -view of Gillingham by W Muiler for 5SS0 Millaiss My Second Sermon for 1705 Friths The Pet Fawn for 1GS0 Linnells The Emigrants for 4410 Peter Grahams The Cradle of the Sea Bird for S435o and two pictures by Clarkson Stanfeld The Worms Head Briston Channel for 1725 and Cittora on the Gulf of Salerno for 2310 A Mistake Of course said the jeweler row meant well but dont do that again What do you mean inquired the man in charge of the repair depart ment You charged that last man so much that instead of having his old watch fixed he bought a new one that I had marked down to cost as an advertise ment Washington Star j Corrected Mrs Gray Its positively disgraceful Black has begun courting again before his dead wife is hardly cold Mr Gray My dear I think you wrong Black I happen to know that his wife was cremated Minneapolis Times News Abont Ccesar Teacher Now what can you teil me about Julius Caesar Pupil He wrote boobs in classics Tid Bits There are two occasions when women count their own fingers one of them is when they hear that a widower is to be married A TRAMP AND A HAT How a Mystery Was Solved aud a L j Jury Chagrined A Chicago lawyer who was called to a small town in the Pennsylvania oil region awhile ago on legal business be came greatly interested in a prisoner whom he found there in jail awaiting trial for murder The fellow was a tranip jmd apparently had not a friend in the oil district or anywhere else on earth The case against him however was based entirely on circumstantial evidence and the Chicago man be lieved that it would be an easy matter to establish the prisoners innocence and secure his acquittal Having had several talks with the tramp who told a plain straightforward convincing story the lawyer undertook to conduct his defense solely in the interest of justice The prosecution made out a complete chain of incriminating circumstances It WJis shown that late in the evening a pistol shot had been heard and pe destrians who hastened to investigate found a resident of the town lying in the street dead with a bullet hole in his head It looked like an attempted robery which met with resistance and resulted in murder Lying beside the body was an old battered Derby hat The alarm was given and a search was organized which resulted in the arrest of the tramp who was found in an alley not far away and was bare headed The hat found by the dered mans body fitted the suspects f head nicely But the tramp had no re volver The prosecution claimed that the prisoner had thrown his weapon into a neighboring river after committing the murder and tlie whole case hinged upon the identification of the hat The tramp explained his bareheaded condi tion by saying that he had lost his head covering while stealing a ride on a freight train The Chicago lawyer de nied the identification of the hat He pointed out the fact that although it fitted the prisoner it would also fit the prosecuting attorney and the presiding judge himself The jury retired and in a few min utes brought in a verdict of acquittal The prisoner seemed to take the result quite stoically He thanked tlie Chi cago man added his profound convic tion that the latter was a bird and turning to the Court remarked Judge may I liave my hat now if you aivj through with it Pioneer Days in the White House Congress first assembled in the new Capitol on Nov 17 1S00 and John Adams then President took up his abode in the Executive Mansion writes ex President Harrison of The Domestic Side of the White nouse in the Ladies Home Journal Neither thu Capitol nor the Executive Mansion was fully completed The proportions of tho house seemed to Mrs Adams as grand and superb The plan was taken from the palac of the Duke of Leinster in Dublin- If they will put me up somej bells and let me have wood enough to keep fires wrote Mrs Adams I design to be pleased But though literally in the woods no one could be found to cut and cart firewood The few cords of wood that had been provided had been expended to dry the plastering A Pennsylvania wagon secured through a Treasury clerk delivered a cord and a half of wood which is wrote Mrs Adams all we have for this house where twelve fires are constantly re quired and we are told the roads will soon be so bad that it canot be drawn The society- ladies were impatient for a drawing room in the Executive Mansion and this when Mrs Adams had no looking glasses but dwarfs and not a twentieth part lamps enough to light the house There was no in closure and she made a drying room for her clothes of the great East room The original cost of the White House is said to have bvn a little more than three hundred thousand dollars and something more than that amount was expended in restoring it after its de struction by fire in 1S14 and in the building of the north and south por ticos Teaching Music A Scottish highland piper having a scholar to teach disdained to crack his brains with tlie names of semibreves minims crotchets and quavers Here Donald said he tak yer pipes lad an gie us a blast So verra weel blawn indeed but whats a sound Donald without sense Ye mawn blow forever without makin a tune ot if I dlnna tell ye how the queer things on the paper mawn help ye You so tliat big fellow wi a round open face qointng to a semi breve between two lin s of a bar He moves slowly from that line to this while ye Ixsa t anc wi yer fist and gie us a long blast If now if ye put a leg to him ye make twa o him an hell move twice as fast and if ye black his face hell run four times faster than tlie fellow wi the white face but If after blacking his face yed bend his knee or tie his leg hell hop eight times faster than the white faced chap I showed you first Now wheneer ye blaw yer pipes Donald remember this that the tighter those fellows legs are tied the faster theyll run and the quicker theyre sure to run That is tlie more legs they have bent up contrary to nature the faster goes the music Too Far He They have carried these musi cals so fax that it is positive torturo to listen to them She Yes there are some people who believe they are a whole orchestra sim ply because have a drum in their ear Judge it Does The front wheel of a bicycle should be called for often it goeth be fore a fall Philadelphia Press 3 S i i jU