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6 American Sunday Mon tidy Magazine Section R. RALPH ERNEST BURN HAM, rich man’s son, fair-haired and twenty-two, sat at a window of his bungalow at five o’clock on a summer’s morning where he had a complete view of seven street lamps. He had thoroughly made up his mind to send his soul a-winging to an unknown bourne with the extinguishing of the seventh lamp. Hardly necessary is it to say that he had proposed, had been promptly refused, and immediately con cluded there was nothing left to live for. So, wishing to be “different” even in self-imposed death, he had evolved an entirely original stage setting for his final shuffle. Promptly at five o’clock the lamp-lighter—now the lam]) extinguisher—walked up to Lam]) Number One on a corner opposite Mr. Burnham’s bungalow, shoved a short stick against a trigger-like arrange ment in the lamp, and the light went out. Young Burnham drew a deep breath, opened a drawer in a table by his side, and glanced at a steel-blue re volver reposing there. Then he looked at his watch. It was two minutes past five o’clock. He had thirteen minutes more to live. The morning before he had held a secret rehearsal at the window, and found it took the lamp lighter exactly fifteen minutes to extinguish the seven lights visible from the bedroom window. Lamp Number Two suddenly faded out as he sat thinking. Then Mr. Burnham with a steady hand took the revolver from the drawer and placed it on the table. He had allowed his thoughts to revert back to the girl whom he blamed for the folly he was about to commit, and was conjuring up a mental picture of her loveliness when the light from Lamp Number Three was snuffed out. Mr. Burnham reached a trifle nervously for his cigarette case, opened it, closed it again and put it back in his pocket. His gaze was fixed on light Number Four as it, too, disappeared. He was fast becoming fascinated at the deadly precision with which each pale, yellow flicker was being obliterated from his view, and al though the morning air was delightfully cool little beads of perspiration were beginning to appear on his smooth, boyish forehead. Number Five went out just as he reached for the revolver. He allowed his hand to rest on it while he watched tensely for Number Six to go. When it faded out he raised the pistol to his right temple, clenched his teeth, and sat perfectly still. But Lamp Number Seven did not go out. Mr. Burnham waited as patiently as he could. He concluded that the seemingly longer interval between the extinguishing of the last two lights might simply be a freak of a strained imagination. The hand holding the weapon commenced to tremble slightly. The strain was beginning to tell on his nerves. Of course—the lamp-lighter must have stopped to light his pipe. That was it. Confound him, why couldn’t he hurry? But Lamp Number Seven continued to shine, and Burnham at last allowed himself a quick glance at his watch. Twenty minutes past five! He stared again at the light three blocks distant. The lamp-post itself was entirely hidden by tree branches, but a little open space in the foliage gave him a clear view of the light. Suddenly he saw something swoop down from the sky like a huge bird, and land behind the tree where the lam]) was. A moment afterwards a man came running down the street towards the bungalow. Then Mr. Burnham made up his mind to shoot any way, but as he tried to pull the trigger his strength failed, the light, street and room swam in a dark mist before him, and he fell back fainting in the chair. The thing that had come from the sky was an aeroplane, and the man running along the street was my friend and partner Curtis, professional aviator, who possessed the enviable habit of always doing the right thing at the right time. Curtis and I had watched Burnham’s courtship of Miss Evelyn Harkness with considerable curiosity. They had been introduced but three weeks before “Don’t turn out that light,” she shrieked through the megaphone and then fell back fainting at the aerodrome enclosure, and up to three days after Burnham’s rejection he had been a constant visitor to the track. She had refused him, she said, for several reasons. Chiefly because she had reasoned he was too young to know his own mind in the short time of their ac quaintance, and she was also certain that his family would never consent to their marrying. Of her past she told us a little, mentioning that she had been a trick bicycle rider, forced into the business by the early loss of a father and mother. She had told Burnham all of this, but he had declared, as she knew he would, that none of it mattered. “And why do you tell us all this?” asked Curtis bluntly when she had finished. The girl’s cheeks flamed, and she stammered something about Curtis being able to advise her. “There’s nothing to advise,” said Curtis, “you’ve refused him, and that’s an end of it.” “But,” said the girl quickly, and anxiously,“he has threatened to kill himself. I know it’s silly of me, but I’m afraid he might do something rash.” “Supposing he did,” said Curtis pretending not to notice the girl's agitation at his remark, “the world wouldn’t stop moving. I expect he’s a useless kind of individual anyway.” “I won’t hear you say anything against Mr. Burnham,” cried the girl, her eyes snapping angrily, “he’s perfectly fine, and also he's a gentleman.” With this parting shot she turned and strode away to her hangar on the edge of the field. Curtis laughed and turned to me. “I knew it,” he said, “she’s in love with him.” Two days went by with both of us so busy with races, and heats, and trials that we thought little about Burnham and his love affair. But on the morning of the third day, just as the early grey light was creeping under the door of our hangar we were awakened by a pounding on the door. Curtis bellowed an angry query, and we heard a woman’s voice hysterically calling for us. I rushed to the door and threw it open. Miss Harkness tottered inside, and I saw a frightened faced messenger boy standing behind her. Curtis took a note that she held out to him, read it, and handed it to me. It was from Burnham. We learned afterwards he had given it to his valet with the order “send it special” meaning special delivery mail, and had tried to time it so the note would reach Miss Harkness about two hours after his suicide. But the valet had mistaken the order to mean “special messenger,” and had dispatched it accordingly. Burnham, in the note, describ ed elaborately his plan for self- murder, telling all about the lamps, the lamp-lighter, and particularly the time he . had scheduled himself to die. The girl, bereft of speech, was frantically clutching Curtis’s arm. My friend looked at our alarm clock. It was exactly five. The first lamp had gone out! “It’s about five miles from here to Burnham’s,” he mut tered unconsciously speaking aloud his thoughts. “It’s a long chance, but may be we could do it.” He made a rush for his bi plane, and I, divining his scheme, shoved open the big double doors of our hangar. Miss Harkness uttered a little scream and ran to Curtis’ side. “Oh, you must take me too,” she appealed, and with out waiting for reply climbed into the machine. With fever ish haste we dragged the bi plane out to the field, and as Curtis leaped to the seat beside Miss Harkness I swung the propeller blades around, the engine roared into the air, and like some live thing the biplane soared away towards the rising sun. I watched until it was out of sight, and then took out my watch. It was twelve minutes past five! I heard the rest of the story later from the lips of Miss Harkness. Curtis never would say any thing about an adventure wherein he figured favorably. Flying at all the speed the great one-hundred horse power biplane was capable of, they had come upon the little street where Burnham lived just in time to see the sixth light go out. Regardless of possible fatal consequences Curtis pointed the machine downward at an acute angle from its height of eight hundred feet. As it rushed to earth he realized that he and his companion would be killed should he attempt a direct glide into the street, so he shifted the front planes when one hundred feet from the ground. As the girl watched with terrified gaze, she saw the lamplighter turn and lift his stick towards the trigger on the lamp, but at that moment Curtis shoved a small megaphone into her hand. Risking a plunge to death the girl leaned far out over the side of the biplane, and crushed the megaphone to her lips. “Don’t turn out that light!” she shrieked, and fell back fainting. The megaphone fell from her nerveless fingers, and landed at the feet of the astonished lamp-lighter. In another moment the biplane swept to the ground, and leaving the unconscious girl in the seat, Curtis leaped out.and raced towards Burnham’s house. A desperate kick shivered a pane of glass in a window fronting on the porch, giving him entrance. Then, pushing aside a terrified valet who had rushed out of his room at the noise, Curtis sprang up the stairs and found Burnham slowly recovering from his faint. It was not long afterwards that two very lovesick young persons were clasped in each other’s arms, alternately crying and laughing. And while the\ were occupied with themselves Curtis slipped away. “I wish I had been officially timed on that trip, ' he said when he returned to our hangar, “I’ll bet I did one hundred miles an hour.”