early, the spiritual, the literal fruit that had blessed his labours.
Policeman O'Brine folded the paper and poked it playfully under the arm of a small boy that was passing. That boy was named Johnny, and he took the paper home with him. His sister was named Gladys, and she had written to the beauty editor of the paper asking for the practicable touchstone of beauty. That was weeks ago, and she had ceased to look for an answer. Gladys was a pale girl, with dull eyes and a discontented expression. She was dressing to go up to the avenue to get some braid. Beneath her skirt she pinned two leaves of the paper Johnny had brought. When she walked the rustling sound was an exact imitation of the real thing.
On the street she met the Brown girl from the flat below and stopped to talk. The Brown girl turned green. Only silk at $5 a yard could make the sound that she heard when Gladys moved. The Brown girl, consumed by jealousy, said something spiteful and went her way, with pinched lips.
Gladys proceeded toward the avenue. Her eyes now sparkled like jagerfonteins. A rosy bloom visited her cheeks; a triumphant, subtle, vivifying, smile transfigured her face. She was beautiful. Could the beauty editor have seen her then! There was something in her answer in the paper, I believe, about cultivating kind feelings toward others in order to make plain features attractive.
The labour leader against whom the paper's solemn and weighty editorial injunction was laid was the father of Gladys and Johnny. He picked up the remains of the journal from which Gladys had ravished a cosmetic of silken sounds. The editorial did not come under his eye, but instead it was greeted by one of those ingenious and specious puzzle problems that enthrall alike the simpleton and the sage.
The labour leader tore off half of the page, provided himself with table, pencil and paper and glued himself to his puzzle.
Three hours later, after waiting vainly for him at the appointed place, other more conservative leaders declared and ruled in favour of arbitration, and the strike with its attendant dangers was averted. Subsequent editions of the paper referred, in coloured inks, to the clarion tone of its successful denunciation of the labour leader's intended designs.
The remaining leaves of the active journal also went loyally to the proving of its potency.
When Johnny returned from school he sought a secluded spot and removed the missing columns from the inside of his clothing, where they had been artfully distributed so as to successfully defend such areas as are generally attacked during scholastic castigations. Johnny attended a private school and had had trouble with his teacher. As has been said, there was an excellent editorial against corporal punishment in that morning's issue, and no doubt it had its effect.
After this can any one doubt the power of the press?
AT TEN o'clock P. M. Felicia, the maid, left by the basement door with the policeman to get a raspberry phosphate around the corner. She detested the police- man and objected earnestly to the arrangement. She pointed out, not unreasonably, that she might have been allowed to fall asleep over one of St. George Rathbone's novels on the third floor, but she was overruled. Rasp- berries and cops were not created for nothing.
The burglar got into the house without much difficulty; because we must have action and not too much descrip- tion in a 2,000-word story.
In the dining room he opened the slide of his dark lantern. With a brace and centrebit he began to bore into the lock of the silver-closet.
Suddenly a click was heard. The room was flooded with electric light. The dark velvet portieres parted to admit a fair-haired boy of eight in pink pajamas, bearing a bottle of olive oil in his hand.
'Are you a burglar?' he asked, in a sweet, childish voice.
'Listen to that,' exclaimed the man, in a hoarse voice. 'Am I a burglar? Wot do you suppose I have a three- days' growth of bristly bread on my face for, and a cap with flaps? Give me the oil, quick, and let me grease the bit, so I won't wake up your mamma, who is lying down with a headache, and left you in charge of Felicia. who has been faithless to her trust.'
'Oh, dear,' said Tommy, with a sigh. 'I thought you would be more up-to-date. This oil is for the salad when I bring lunch from the pantry for you. And mamma and papa have gone to the Metropolitan to hear De Reszke. But that isn't my fault. It only shows how long the story has been knocking around among the editors. If the author had been wise he'd have changed it to Caruso in the proofs.'
'Be quiet,' hissed the burglar, under his breath. 'If you raise an alarm I'll wring your neck like a rabbit's.'
'Like a chicken's,' corrected Tommy. 'You had that wrong. You don't wring rabbits' necks.'
'Aren't you afraid of me?' asked the burglar.
'You know I'm not,' answered Tommy. 'Don't you suppose I know fact from fiction. If this wasn't a story I'd yell like an Indian when I saw you; and you'd probably tumble downstairs and get pinched on the sidewalk.'
'I see,' said the burglar, 'that you're on to your job. Go on with the performance.'
Tommy seated himself in an armchair and drew his toes up under him.
'Why do you go around robbing strangers, Mr. Burg- lar? Have you no friends?'
'I see what you're driving at,' said the burglar, with a dark frown. 'It's the same old story. Your innocence and childish insouciance is going to lead me back into an honest life. Every time I crack a crib where there's a kid around, it happens.'
'Would you mind gazing with wolfish eyes at the plate of cold beef that the butler has left on the dining table?' said Tommy. 'I'm afraid it's growing late.'
The burglar accommodated.
'Poor man,' said Tommy. 'You must be hungry. If you will please stand in a listless attitude I will get you something to eat.'
The boy brought a roast chicken, a jar of marmalade and a bottle of wine from the pantry. The burglar seized a knife and fork sullenly.
'It's only been an hour,' he grumbled, 'since I had a lobster and a pint of musty ale up on Broadway. I wish
