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School Days,
Oft to school,
With a merry laugh!
While the apirit beams
. ahvang digams;.
And the eye is bright
A$ a star at night, ,
And the cheek 18 red :
As a red rose bed,
And their glowing health
Is a world of wealth
Ag they romp and sing
And shout and ring
The changes down
On the quiet town, : ,
Till all doth share / »
The gladness there
Of the boys and girls _
When the day is fair. |
In at school
And a solemn look! ,
For the joy is gone !
And the troubles on, g
When the puzzled face '~
In its wonted place {
s brooding o'er "
Its tragic lore, .
And they peg away )
The livelong day :
Till the brain is dull
In the throbbing skull :
And the soul's arack
With a breaking back
At the weary task
That the masters ask, :
But they have from me
My sympathy,
When the day is gray.
Out of school o
With a heave and sigh!
But the face of youth
Is stamped with truth. .
For the way of a book
Gives a placid look -
And a quiet mien
In the soul is seen, ;
And the work begun
Is never done;
But the childish sorrow
Knows no tomorrow.
And the youthful sigh
Bhall soon pass by!
So' my heart is sad
And my heart is glad
For the boys and girls
When the day is sped.
—I. F. ~ in Baltimore Sun.
"SEFESEEESESESESEEF_SESEEEEEE?.SES?J
SIMPLICITY OF MY
| COUSIN RANDOLPH.
g ' i Scadies
“There is no greatness like sim
plicity,” quoth my Cousin Randolph,
beaming and complacent.
I agreed. “It’s an excellent card at
times,” I said. b
“It's the ace of trumps,” said he,
“when hearts lead.” For ease, he
dangled his leg over the arm of his
chair. “I tell you a simple mind may
concéive a scheme that's a triumph
of finance, and if one can only man
age to look simple—"
I glanced at his fair fat face, with
its pale prominent eyes and shy lit
tle mustache, and wondered—silent
and waiting. '
“It’s Aunt,” he explcined, vaguely,
“Aunt and those confounded Medusas.
I'm ip the throes of a crisis.”
~ Still I waited, unwilling to dam the
flow of a possible confession.
“Medusas are down,” he went on,
“down, confoundedly down, and Aunt
is—so to speak—up. She's staying
at the Grand. It occurred to me that
something might be made of the com
bination. Dear soul, she's a peériect
stranger to the—the—higher forms of
finance. Does all her business
through some girl my man calls the
Lady Scckerty.'”
“Ah!™ I scented a revelation.
“Not that I would take any sort of
advantage of her ignorance, you un
derstand,” he mounted a moral pedes
tal for an instant, “and if those beast
ly Medusas had gone up instead of
down——it's run me into four figures!”
“l don't see the greatness of this
simplicity,” 1 observed.
“It follows in due course,” he as
sured me. “The difficuliy, of course,
lies in the four figures, which, by the
way. I hadn’'t got. No. And in such
circumstances the broker chap i 3 apt
%o get unpleasant and invoke the
what-d’ye-call-’ems of the law. Th_a't’s
what my broker chap did, and now
he’'s talking of some beastly things
he calls distraint. Know what" that
1s?”
I enlightened him to the best of my
ability.
“England isn’'t what it was” he
complained bitterly. - “In the good old
days ap Englishman’s home was his
castle—now, it’s the place where peo
ple take inventories of your things
and hold auction sales. When thgx‘-e’s
anything at all to sell,” he added as
an after thought. :
I must have expressed some little
increduality. My Cousm Randolph
was the reputed owner of a very neat
little property, and, so far as I knew,
it had never changed hands.
“Because, by a rather complicated
arrangement, directly I had hearu
from tue broker chap I interviewed
dear Aunt, with the result that she
now believes herself to be the pro
prietor of all my iittle household
goods in oxchange for her little
check.” He carefully selected and
lighted a fresh cigarette. “I didn’t
think it was necessary to tell ‘her
they were ali covered with a bill of
sale some two years ago—to begin
with, the poor dear wouldn't have un
derstood what that meant.”
“Hearts led?”
“I didn't ask for money. I only ask
ed her to let me have a check for,
say, two thousand pounds—properly
crogssed and so on, you know-—just
to show the people who came to make
an auction of my poor triags. [
should explain that they weren’t mine
at all—that I'd soid them to dear
Aunt, ana I should show the check in
proof—in most conclusive proof—that
she’d bought and paid for them. Sim
ple, isn’t it?”
I began to laugh; this commercial
innocence was novel.
“And then, of ccurse, they'd go
away—and I return the check to dear
Aunt, and all is well. That's how it
looks to her.” -
“And you actually got it?”
He took a slip of pink paper from
his pocket-book, and regarded it af
fectionately. “Yes. I actually got it.
But seeing that t.e banks all close
go early on Saturdays—"
He sighed and returned it '‘to its
cover.
“It’s playing it rather low down on
dear Aunt, I admit,” he said, sorrow
fully, “especially as she had crossed
the thing to make it safe. She thinks
she has just lent me her signature
for a few days. But suppose I hap
pened to lose it, and somehody else
found it and discounted it—with a
little ‘hard swearing thrown in—
what? And that’s where you come
o
“And she’ll believe all that—that
footle?” ]
“To the simple all is simplicity,”
quoth he, “and I don't think the dear
lady knows what ‘footle’ means.”
A violent ringing of the telephone
bell interrupted us for a moment.
“That’s the worst of fixing up one’s
rooms like some beastly office,” ob
served my Cousin Randolph casually.
“Hang on to the thing and see what
it wants. You’re nearest.”
“And if it’s anything unpleasant,”
he went on, as the bell rang again,
“say I'm away and you're my clerk.
Say I'm dead, if you like.”
“I'm hanged if I do,” I retorted.
“Hullo!” I held the thing to my ear,
A squeaky voice, small and distant,
responded. ‘“Are you there?”
“Yes, thanks. What is it?”
“I'm the Grand Hotel—the—yes—
what? I can’t hear—the Grand Ho
tel. Smithers, my name is, Miss
Smithers. S-m-i-t-h-erf’ she spell
ed it for my better understanding.
“She says her name is Smithers
and she’s the Grand Hotel,” I an
nounced. “You'd better take it on
now.”
My Cousin Randolph retorted brief
ly. “Don’'t know the lady—never
heard of her—never talk to strange
ladies through the telephone—against
my principles.”
“Against your—"
The little voice interrupted. “I
want Mr. Randolph Strangeways,” it‘
said. “Is that you?” i
“She’s pleading for you,” I told
fim: “this is Dbeauty in distress.
Come on, Lothario.” | ‘
“I'm Lady Julias secretary,” said
the voice, “and I want to speak 10
Mr. Strangeways about a check. It’s
most important.”
“Lady Julia’s the Aunt, the Aunt
I've been talking about,” observed my
Cousin Randolph, with deadly distinct
ness,
The voice took it up.
“About that check. As Lady Julia’s
only got a few hundreds at the
bank—" =
“A few hundreds!” groaned my
Cousin Randolph, and then rounded
off the remark in his own peculiar
fashion. -
%] don’t think he ought to swear,”
the voice continued—it seemed to me
that laugh was borne along the wires.
“Of course, poor dear Lady Julia does
get so muddled up with her bank
balance and her pass-book, and she
hasn’t been at all well, and she quite
understands that Mr. Sirangeways
only wants to show the check to his
creditors.” 1 was quite sure now of
the laugh. “Of course, under the cir
cumstances, it can’t matter at all to
him that—"
My Cousin Randolph had selzed the
second receiver and was listening
with all his might. “Can’t matter at
all that—what? Go on.”
“That Lady Julia had stopped pay
ment of the check in ease it should
happen to get lost or anything, you
know. One has to be so careful. I
thought Mr. Strangeways might like
to know. What? Oh, please don’t
keep on swearing so—it do¢s’ unnerve
me.” . s
“To the simple,” I began, incau
tiously.
My Cousin Randolph retorted with
emphasis. “This is the straw that
broke the camel’s back,” he said.
The squeaky voice again interrupt
ed. “If you wouldn’'t mind letting me
finish,” it said. “I won’t be long and
then you can go away and have a nice
comfortable swear 21l to yourselves.
What? I can’t hear. Yes; Lady Julia
does think it funny that the mere
sight of a cheek will satisfy a credi
tor—very funny; but she says it
would be more useful and less dan
gerous if you returned it to her in ex
change for five little Bank of England
notes. Yes; less dangerous. What?
Oh! What do I get out of it for spoil
ing the deal? Oh, well, the laborer
is worthy of her hire, isn't she? And
—yes—l’m all right, thanks. Good
by!” »
The telephone was put back in its
place and I began again to laugh.
“True greatness is always simple, isn’t
it?” I said. “Twenty-five to two thou
sand, and to be outwitted by a Smith-
B L A T T
" 'But my Cousin Randolph was im
pervious to gibes and was ever phil
osophic. “Twenty-five is twenty-five,”
quoth he. “It might be worse. Let’s
go out and get some dinner. What?”
—The King. " e
Schoolhoy Humor,
~ Ete. 1s a sign used to make believe
you know more than you do.
The equator is a menagerie lion
running round the centre of the earth.
The zebra is like a horse, only
striped and used to illustrate the let
ter Z.
A vacuum is nothing shut up in a
box.—Definitions by ILionden School
Children in New York World.
" A man died recently in Boston who
was known to his neighbors only as
a man who owned a building of which
he was his own janitor. He lived
alone, dressed meanly, and apparently
cared for nobody but himself; but he
left $200,000 to the benevolent insti.
tutions of Boston. Who can read the
riddle of such a life? '
The island of Ceylon, off the coast
of India, is one of the largest graphite
mining countries in the world. Large
depesits of graphite «re also being ex
ploited in Siberia, chiefly in the neig_..
borhood of Irkutsk, on Lake Baikal.
" T~-A Vision of Weaith,
The conversation as ovetheard by
the passenger in the next &eat:
“How many have you?”
“Of, 1 guess about 350,000.”
“Has it been & good season?”
~ “Rair, but nothing extra.”
“How much did each net you?”
“Perhaps $5.” :
Then one of the two left the car.
“Excuse me,” said the passenger in
the next seat, leaning forward, “but
may I ask who your friend is?”
“Certainly. That is Col Combes.”
“He seems w 0 ne a man of wealth.”
“He’s not particularly wealthy.”
“I heard him say he had 350,000
of something or other. Stocks, I sup
pose.” : ‘
“Not at all. Bees. He’s an ama
teur beekeeper.”
“But didn’t he say they had netted
him $5 apiece?”
' “Yes, that’s what he said each of
the hives netted him. There are
about 35,000 bees in a hive.
“And all he’d made off them was.
$5072” -
“YeS."
“Oh!”
“Curiosity fully satisfied?”
“Er—yes. I beg your pardon.”.
“Not at all, sir.”—Chicago Tribune,
Bird Duel to the Death.
~ A duel to the death was witnessed
Monday morning near the corner of
Parker street and Great road, the
i principals being two vlue birds and a
crow. The fight had probably been in
progress some time before it was
inoticed, as when attention was at
tracted to the strange battle the crow
’ evidently had enough and was in full
flight with the blue birds in full
’chase.
. The larger bird was dodging in the
lvain attempt to shake off its persist
ent pursuers, but its efforts were use
less, as whiever way it turaed one of
its antagonists was on hand to check
its flight. :
The crow in its desperation finally
landed quite near the road and put
up its last fight only a few feet away
from the spectators. The big bird
never succumbed until there was not
an ounce of fight left in it, and died
after a few attempts to repulse the in
creasing attacks of ivs small enemies.
The crow was exwmined after the
contest and was found to be almost
completely covered with blovd and
cut in a score of places by the sharp
pecks of the blue birds. The latter
were evidently none the worse for
the encounter, as they flew merrily
away after putting the crow to death.
—Boston Globe. &
I A resident of Havana, Cuba, while
gladly admitting that United States
occupancy of the island resulted in
the almost total obliteration of yellow
fever, says that when a Cuban starts
for the States, especially New York,
he is warned to be ~areful about con
tracting pneumonia. “We fear ‘pneu
monia when in the States much more
‘than we ever feared yellow fever when
in Cuba,” he said. Pneumonia claims
its victims by the hundreds of thou
sands every year, yet we hear much
less about it than we used ‘to hear
about yellow fever. Perhaps we have
‘become so accustomed to the devasta~
l tions of pneumonia that we give it lit
tle attention. But the medical profes
lsion is striving earnestly to combat
| it, and in view of the profession’s suc
cess in combatting other and once
! dreaded diseases it is not too much to
hope that in aue time the disease will
!have lost its force.
' The Barbers of Cresco.
| Cresco, Latin for “I grow,” is the
| ambitions name of a city in lowa.
' The City Council of Cresco has pass
led a thoughtful set of ordinances for
' the regulation of barbers. One of the
'rulcs forbids barbers to drink intoxi
cating liquor in business hours. A
wise rule. A razor-man needs to be
gsober as a railroad man. But ought
'not the shavee to be as abstinent as
ithe shaver? asks Everybody’s Maga
'zine. It is a poor rule that won't
| Work both was.