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DISTANCE. * softening days, when a storm was near. jMAt the farmhouse door I have stood in the Kray, caught in the diseance, faint but clear ■flic sound of a train, passing, far away. HHb< warning bell when the stall was made, HgThe engine’s puffing of smoke unseen, HUHth the heavy rumble as wheels obeyed— Acrons the miles between. -And so sometimes, on a moonless night, J i‘When the stare shine soft and the wind is low, To my listening soul, in the pallid light, Come the trembling voices of long ago *n>e tuneful echoes when hope was young. The tender song of love serene, And the throbbing rhythm of passion’s ,tongue— Across the yeai-s between. —Margaret H r . Hamilton. my!)ay. ■pw long is that of most people. I wqjßer? Some perhaps can number the six hundred ana thirteen thousand and eight hours of the al ;jSfced threescore years and ten, while |Mbers outlast the pre-Adamic day of the and cover all eternity. But mine was just the ordinary daylight one, ' the shortest in the year, "too, for it was the 21st of December. And even short as it was. I had already wfited some hours of it. Had I thought it would have set so soon I might have j been up at its dawning, though usually I hold, with Lever, that the sun looks best | —as every one else docs—when he's up and dressed for the day, and that its a piece of impertinent curiosity to peep at him when he’s raising and at his toilet; he has not nibbed the clouds out of his eyes, or you dared not look- at him. But when one's sun shines such a little while as mine, might not one be pardoned for'rushing to the levee at an unfashion able hour. Yet it was noon before I was out tn the bright glow, tmdgingdown the lane with yesterday’s fall of snow crisping under my feet, and last night's sleet clashing overhead, as the wind caught at the straggling, overgrown hedge-row boughs and, sent them ringing together with such an icy jeweled flash and splendor of green and gold and red and blue as summer with all her wealth of leaves and blossoms, could not rival. The very splendor promised the glitter ing mockery but a short life; the sun is a traitor with his kisses, and the warmth of them would soon wither away the snow’ wreaths, making their delicate mimicry of the white May and the hawthorn in the hedge. But meantime they were very fair, and the snow lay light and white under the great peach orchards that had their icy sparkle too. as they swept away, with gentle undulations, right and left of the still lane. And the blue sky had the merest snowflake of a cloud drifting along, and the sun was shining full upon me, and somehow a glint of it had got into my heart, though there was nothing in particular to bring it there. Yet I did not intend to mope. Aunt Margaret and the girls were friendly and kind, and the least I could do would be to put aside the shadow of my crape, and show them a contented face. And so— Perhaps something more than content flashed into it just then, when that thought of mine was broken short off by a clatter of those hedge-row’ boughs, and some one sprang down through the gap, bringing with him a little clatter of fall ing icicles into the road before me. For. as we shook hands, there was a pleased look in his eyes, and he said, with some Abruptness: “You are a little glad to see me? You won’t mind my finishing your walk with you?” I tried to answer carelessly, though it was not so easy, under that gaze of his. “Oh, if yon arc of a zoological turn this morning. I am going in search of foxtail and crowfoot. I marked a quite splendid bed down by the brook in the woods in a sheltered spot where I dare say this light snow han not covered it. The girls toll me they are not in the habit of putting evergreens about the house, but I always did it at home, and ” He understood me at once. He said, with his rare gentleness: “And you are trying hard to keep some of the old feel ing about you. You must forgive me if I cannot help seeing something of your brave struggle, and yearning to help you in it.” K Yearning! It was a strong word, but his eyes made it stronger, as I could not help glancing up to see. And before, in my confusion. I could drop mine again, somehow’ my muff was on the snow’ at our feet, and both my hands were in his. ’ “Miss Deane—Annie—l help you —with my whole life, Annie!” And, after that, is it any wonder if the sur shone straight into my heart? I don’t think our researches would have added much to thecause of either z ’ology or botany that day. On the lat ter especially my lover would have made ‘(strange confusion, insisting that we were passing under quite a number of mistle foe boughs, if my superior knowledge of ’/the science had not set him right. We did find the crowfoot, however, and, as I •hnd expected, not too deep in the snow. But when he had torn up a long spray of it and flung it trailing over my shoulder. I stayed his hand. Madge and I could , j «ome another day for some—there was K P’ Pn *y time—but to-day's in-gather afangs I meant to keep all to myself. At least for this one day. I told him. ■jwhen we had reached the house, and /paused together in the porch. For this U, one day we would not call in any one. E. however friendly, to see what it had B?. brought me: but to-night, when he was ■Lgone. then I would tell Aunt Margaret |Hthat I was to be his wife. I said the •word in a little flutter as we stood to ■Bgether, for already he had been asking (fee how’ long I meant to keep his own Atom him. As I said it. I glanced up shyly at him, and it would have discom fited me to see how. his face changed,pal ing at that word, if his hand had not ■ closed on mine with a tightening grasp which made me ashamed of a dawning P* doubt that he wanted it. ‘ ’Annie—” The voice, full of a strange pain, startled me. Could this day have any pain in it ? Perhaps he read that thought—he was | always so quick to understand—for he said: “I have a story to tell you, Annie, a story that may take some of the bright ness out of this hour for you, as it has' taken all the brightness out of the last seven years of my life until now. Shall I tell it you now ? Or can you trust me that it is nothing which ought to part us I and would you rather wait to hear it until to-morrow ? ” I could trust him: ay, rather, I could not distrust him; and I told him so. Let us live this day out without a shadow; afterward, if shadows must come, he should lead me safely through them. “There is no danger in the shadow’. Annie; there is only something for us both to forget." “Let us forget it now, then. See, there is Aunt Margaret at the window signing to me; she is afraid I shall let her neigh bor so offend against her good old fashioned hospitality as to go away to his bachelor's hall, when it is three o’clock and our dinner hour.” The shortest day of all the year. We were watching its setting from the libra ry w'indow, we two left alone, for Madge and Fanny had driven into the village for the mail, and Aunt Margaret was summoned to one of those kitchen-cabi net councils which grew more and more frequent under old Lethe’s administra tion. So we two were standing together in the bay-window, watching the crim son glow fade off from the wide snow stretch of lawn that sloped down to the lane, dotted here and there with a black green pyramid of fir, between the naked oaks, when presently I caught sight of something moving across their shadows flung stiff and dark across the white. “Some one is coming,” I said, break ing the happy silence. “A lady, I thought—though I wonder who it could be, walking.” “What a bore!” “Oh, she'll not be shown in here, un less you feel disposed to go to Aunt Mar garet's assistance —” Here I saw the side door of the library opening from the lawn. The visitor must have observed us at the window; some one on sufficiently unceremonious terms. It was a stranger. She had closed the door behind her, and had come forward into the full glow of the wood fire blazing on the hearth. A stranger, certainly; If I had ever seen her before, I should never have fergotten her. She was standing on the hearth, and drew her slender gloved hands out of the folds of her cashmere shawl, holding them to the warmth, before she turned to us the fairest face I have ever seen—the fairest face one ever dreamed. Only that would have been a strange, Fouquc-like dream in which such a vision should come. It could not have been after-knowledge on my part, for before she spoke, while she still fronted us with that gay smile upon her perfect lips, I thought of Un dine in her soulless loveliness, light hearted, glad, careless of others’ pain be cause she could not feel it. There is the Undine nature in a child too, for whom there exists no pain that does not bruise its own tender flesh, and that soft hardness made itself felt in every line and curve about this woman, as she stood there, white and golden, looking at us out of those great brilliant eyes, of which I have read somewhere: “Alive in their depths,as the Kraken Ismeath the sea blue”— eyes which I would fain have followed, for they fixed themselves on Brian. Only I could not. that face so held me. “They told me at your house that you were here; and so 1 came, ” she said, still looking at Brian. I turned and looked at him too, then; the clear, soft, shallow, child voice broke the spell. But. he never saw me. His eyes were riveted on her—just as a man might look who sees a ghost. And then she smiled. She had been beautiful before, but now her beauty was ! bewildering. She stretched out her hands to him. “Have you never a word of welcome, Brian, for your wife ? ” He drew a long, hard breath, and passed his hand heavily over his eyes. He never once glanced my way, though I felt he saw me all the while. He answered her very slowly: “How is it you are not dead, Louise ? For nearly seven years you have allowed i me to believe you were.” She laughed a mocking little laugh. Though she did not turn toward me, I knew she had flashed a glance at me. “Have you been a disconsolate widower all that time, my poor Brian ? It was 1 very wicked of me, of course. But j then, you see, I always hated poverty: ! and you were so very impecunious at that time, I really thought it better to die off | your hands.” Here she turned suddenly to me with a I sweet graciousness of manner, while her j eyes, alive with mocking spirits, looked ■ me through, and through. “My husband is a little remiss at in ' traductions, so I find I must make my | self known to you, as I see you are one .of his friends. Every one has a skeleton ;in his closet, you know, and I present ’ you to Brian’s.” I She made a playful courtesy as she I spoke. “Only he fancied it was laid away un- I derground,” she added. “Perhaps he has told you of our runaway match when he was at college, and how angry poor mamma was, and hushed the matter up, and carried me away to Europe to finish Imy school days there. And there it was that mamma "made her brilliant second marriage—a real, true German baron; and jwe went away to Vienna to live. But first I died: for one must die—must not one?—to get into paradise. Brian would j never have let me go there alive, so I ! sent him a lock of my hair and a little scrawling deathbed note inclosed in a I letter from mamma's maid, who had I helped us to run away the year before. You remember Fifine, Brian? She has come over with me now. Such a clever ! soul! I can’t tell how I should ever, without her, have man aged to keep myself informed of your movements, and of course I had to do that, for all widowers aren’t so con stant, and you might have married, you know—” He interrupted her, hoarse with pas sion : “And how do I know that you “Oh, Brian, how can you! As if that \ were not just what my stepfather and I ; quarreled about! After dear mamma died—she died last year” (with a pretty, plaintive fall in voice and eyelids, come and gone as swiftly as a child’s grave look)—“he was quite sot on making a I match for me; and of cotirse that wouldn’t do at all, you know. Dear mamma was content to let me enjoy life my own way; but after she was gone, the steppapa became just a little difficult. Ami so Well, Brian, I knew you were no longer a poor man, and that I should not drag you down now. And so 1 have come back to you, if you will have me.” She put out her hands then in the pret tiest pleading way. If I had been a man— But Brian did not soften in the least. He had pent up his wrath now, and had it under his control; but his voice was still hoarse as he said to her: “I shall take pains to learn whether all this is truth. Meanwhile we will not j trespass any longer ujxm Miss Deane’s patience. I shall take you back to my house, and will set out within the hour for Vienna. Miss Deane will par don ” There he broke off huskily. He had not once lifted his eyes to me since first they fell upon her shadow, which the waning sunset cast between us. But—how I had the strength I do not know—but I went straight up to her and took her hand, and kissed her on the pretty smooth white brow as she lifted up her face to mine. Is there woman born who can keep anger for a pretty child? And there are some people who never outgrow the charm and irresponsi bility of childhood; if they pluck at one’s heart-strings with their careless fingers until one could be stung into giving them a blow or a shake, one must kiss and l>e friends afterward. And then I turned to him—l must have had a vision of how it would all end: for she was wonderfully fair; she had been his first love; she would be his last. I turned to him. “I am sure you will find all as she has said, and that you will forgive her. I don’t think I shall be here still when you come back from your long journey, so you must let me give you my best wishes now.” Our hands met for an instant—not our eyes; we neither of us could bear that. Then our hands fell apart, and presently I was alone. My day was over; twilight darkened in window, grey and blank. And after twilight? Just a paragraph in a book I have been turning over by my solitary fireside to night has set me thinking of all this. It says: “There are women who live all their lives long in the cold white moonlight of other people’s reflected joy. It is not a bad kind of light to live, after all. It may leave some dark, ghostly corners in the heart unwarmed, but, like other moonlight, it lets a great deal be seen overhead that sunshine hides.”— Harper's Weekly. The Case of Joseph Meister. By the application of this method, says M.Pasteur in the Popular Sr lente Monthly, I had succeeded in getting fifty dogs, of various ages and races, proof against rabies without having had a single fail ure, when, on the 6th of July last, three persons from Alsace unexpectedly pre sented themselves at my laboratory. The odore Vone, a grocer at Meissengott.near Schelstadt, who had been bitten in the arm on the 4th of July by hLs own dog, became mad; Joseph Meister, nine, years of age, who had been bitten by the same dog at 8 o’clock in the morning of the same day, and who, thrown to the ground by the dog, bore the marks of numerous bites on his hands, legs, and thighs, some of them so deep as to make walking liard for him. The more seri ous wounds had been cauterized only twelve hours after the accident, or at 8 o’clock in the evening of the same day. with phenic acid, by Dr. Weber, of Ville; the third person who had not been bitten, was the mother of Joseph Meis ter. At the autopsy of the dog, which had been killed by its master, we found its stomach filled with hay, straw and pieces of wood. It was certainly mad. Joseph Meister had been picked up from under it covered with froth and blood. M. Vone had marked bruises on his arms, but he assured me that the dog’s teeth had not gone through his shirt. As he had nothing to fear, I told him he might go back to Alsace the same day, and he did so; but I kept little Meister and his mother. The weekly meeting of the Academy of Sciences took place on the 6th of July. 1 saw our associate, Dr. Vulpian, there, and told him what had passed. He and : Dr. Grancher, professor in the Ecole do i Medicine, had the kindness to come and see little Joseph Meister at once, and ascertain his condition and the number of his wounds, of which there were no less than fourteen. The opinion of these two physicians was that, in con sequence of the severity and number of the bites upon him, Joseph Meister was almost certain to have hydrophobia. I then informed them of the new results which I had obtained in the study of rabies since the address I had delivered at Copenhagen a year previously. The death of this child seeming inevitable. I decided, not without considerable and deep anxiety, as you may imagine, to try upon him the method with which I had had constant success on dogs. A Lucky Confectioner. A German confectioner, while tramp ing through Turkey a short time ago, saluted the Sultan vigorously as the latter drove past. Unaccustomed to such an exhibition of cordiality, one of the sul tan’s officers thought it best to inquire if it had any significance. His explana tion proving, satisfactory and his inno cence clear, and the avowal of his avoca tion, moreover, creating evident interest, the man was dismissed with a present and an injunction to turn up the next day with a clean skin and new clothes. The result of the second interview was that the confectioner was set to making pastry, and his success was so complete that he was engaged right off at a salary of 500 piasters per month. The pastry found its way to the sultan’s table, and his highness was so pleased with it that he made the stranger his confectioner at once, with 1,000 piasters a month for making tarts. A new industry has sprang up at New Orleans. Heads of large fish arc dried, mounted and sold for table and mantel irn aments. WILD BEASTS SURROUNDED HOW FARMERS PROTECTED THEIR CATTLE IN EARLY TIMES. The Famous Work of Many Hunters in Bradford County, Penn., Eighty Years or More Ago. An old resident of Bradford county, Penn., described to a New York Times correspondent an event which, he said, “probably never had a parallel in this or any other country.” Continuing, the old settler said: “There are those living yet who re member the extraordinary occurrence, but all who were participants in it are long since dead. The details arc well pre served in scores of families in the county whose ancestors were among those who helped to make this extraordinary chap ter in the unwritten annals of the back woods. “The region now included in Bradford county liegun to be settled more than a century ago. In 1805 there were alrout 5,000 inhabitants of the county. There wfflv a few small villages, but the set tlers were generally scattered about on farms. With the exceptions of these clearings the country was still an un broken area of dense forest. Wolves, panthers and bears had hardly thought of retiring before the encroachments of the settlers. Deer roamed the woods in herds, and the elk still browsed in the mountain fastnesses. The baekwoixls clearings were constant foraging grounds for wild beasts. The few sheep, swine and cattle the pioneers possessed were never safe from these marauders, and it frequently happened that these raids Icjt the settler’s stock inclosures en tirely empty. Although hundreds of | wild animals annually fell victims to the traps, snares and guns of the pioneers, their depredations still remained a serious obstacle to the welfare of the settlers. In 1805, at the suggestion of a long-suffer ing farmer named Buck, it was resolved to organize a systematic and combined raid on the haunts of the animals whose destructiveness individual effortshad but j slightly checked. Buck’s idea was to 1 ennst every one in the afflicted settle ments who was old enough to carry a I gun, and with this small army form a | circle around as large an area of country I infested by the animals they desired to J assail as the number of hunters war ranted. The party was to be divided into companies of 10, under the lead and command of an experienced woodsman and hunter. When the hunting ground was surrounded each party was to move forward simultaneously toward a common centre, the march to be conditioned on such obstacles as streams, swamps, or hills that might intervene. As the raid was to be one merely of extermination, deer, elk and other unoffending animals were not to be ruthlessly nor indiscrimi nqtely killed. Every hunter, however, should be bound to lay low every pan ther, catamount, bear, wolf,or fox,young or old, that crossed his path. “The pioneer’s suggestion was unani mously adopted nt meetings of settlers held at convenient localities, and it was resolved to make two raids during the year. One was to be in June, when the animals they sought would generally be found with their litters and families of young brought forth in the spring, thus affording opportunity to put much future trouble out of the way with ease, and the other raid was fixed for November, dur ing the nutting season. Every arrange ment for the successful and smooth work ing of the novel campaign was perfected during the winter and spring, and when the day came for the grand raid to com mence 600 men, each armed with his flint lock, a hatchet and a hunting knife, and provided with two days’ rations, were ready for the march. “The number of men who were to par ticipate in the raid was known for days before the appointed time, and warranted the selection of a wide area of country to hunt over. A wild region, which was known to furnish all the requirements of the animals to be proceeded against, ex tending from the head waters of the Wyalusing creek, and taking in portions of Lycoming and Luzerne counties, it was thought, could be profitably and thoroughly scoured by the large party, and a circle of hunters, five to a mile, was formed in that region. This gave an area forty miles across, or 120 miles around, to close in upon. “The day before the day appointed each command of ten men had received orders to be at a place designated at 6 o’clock in the morning, and to be in posi tion to start forward half an hour inter. The arrangements were all successfully carried out. The circle was to be reduced by ten miles the first day. Each hunter had strict orders not to shoot except when he saw some animal plainly and within easy range, so as to avoid the danger of shooting a fellow-hunter in mistake for game moving, but not seen, in the brush. During the first day’s march through the woods ami swamps, al) around the great circle of hunters, the result of the raid, according to the returns of the hunters whose shots had been successful, was as follows, old and young: Panthers, forty; wolves, fifty-eight; bears, ninety-two; foxes, twenty; catamounts, thirteen. The second day’s march brought the hunt ers close together at the centre of the area, and also drove into close quarters a large number of wolves, bears and pan thers, beside many deer and a few elk. My grandfather, who was a captain of one of the divisions of the party, said that the scene presented by these hemmed-in beasts was one he never could forget. The hunters stood in ranks five deep about them. The panthers yelled furiously from the tree-tops as they leaped from branch to branch to escape, but rifle balls met and followed them in all direc tions. Bears huddled together covering their cubs with their bodies, growling fiercely and showing fight even against such fearful odds. Wolves sneaked and snarled about, showing their great white teeth and looking a fierceness they did not possess. The frightened deer and I elk ran wildly to and fro within the circle, and frequently made desperate rushes and cleared the wall of hunters at a bound. Short work was made of the coraled beasts of prey, and when the slaughter was over the record for the two days’ hunt stood: Panthers, seventy-two; wolves, ninety; bears, 145; foxes, thirty seven ; catamounts, twenty-eight. A number of deer and elk were also killed by hunters who could not resist I the temptation. Scores of both could have lieen slain with ease. Foxes and catamounts being less belligerent than bear and psnther. and more wily, es caped with less slaughter, although very numerous in the woods. The bounty on the animals killed amounted to $550. The skins hiul an aggregate value in those days of not less than $2,500. Then the bears killed yielded at least thirty five pounds of highly-prized food to each hunter. But the benefit that resulted to the fanners from the raid in protecting their pastures and farmyards overbal anced tenfold all other profit there was in the hunt. The November raid proved also very successful, and the destructive prowlers of the woods never regained the foothold in the region they had so long enjoyed. Impressions of Bismarck. The following is from an interview of a Washington correspondent with John Bussell Young, published in the New York WorM: “I suppose, Mr. Young, in your life in Europe you must have met many men worth remembering?” “Yes, I was two years in General Grant's company when he traveled abroad, and tnat gave me an opportunity to meet nearly every sovereign and states man of distinction m Europe and Asia.” "You must have met Bismarck?” “Yes, several times. I met him first with General Grant, and several times later. Bismarck is a towering, proud, dominant character.” “How did Bismarck impress you?" “I think that the personal impression Bismarck makes justifies his great fame. I remember General Grant saying to mo on his return from his tour around the world that he had met four really great men—Bismarck, Beaconsfield, Gambetta, and Li Hung Chang, the grand secretary of China. Bismarck impresses you—as I remember him—as a man born to govern nations—the strongest, character since Napoleon; audacious, arrogant, proud, with a vein of humor permeating his con versation, and the embodiment of wit, courage and common sense. I should say he was the embodiment of absolute com mon sense and justice, with a courage that feared no antagonism, and streaming and vivid with intellect and justice, and a determination to carry his point against the whole world. He was personally a strong, virile man, and would say the most unusual and extraordinary things, and more than that he would carry them out. He had a purpose and a policy, and he did it in away that reminded you very much of what you read of Frederick the Great, or Marlborough, or any of those great men who have been called on by Providence to do great things. “Prince Bismarck, speaking of him as I recall his personal appearance and man ner, had a resemblance to General Butler and to General Sickles. He had General Butler’s odd way of stating things in a sententious, humorous phase, and he was very strongly like General Sickles in his manner. He spoke English fairly well, slowly, cautiously, liken man translat ing?’’ Room for Improvement. The nuts which we find on the tabla for dessert, are nearly ail of foreign growth. This ought not to be so. There are varieties enough in our forests, ns any country boy can testify, to spread the table of a king. The most, eminent bot anist in America, Dr. Asa Gray, after speaking of this fact, goes on to explain how much these hard-shelled fruits might be improved by cultivation. Our wild chestnuts are sweeter than those of the old world; it would be well to try whether races might not be well developed with the nuts ns large us mar rons or Spanish chestnuts, and without diminution of flavor. If we wore not too easily satisfied with a mere choice be- I tween spontaneous hickory nuts, we might have much better Ami thinner ; shelled ones. Varrying, as they do, ex cessively in the thickness of the shell and the size and flavor of the kernel, they are 1 inviting your attention, and promising to reward your care. The pecan is waiting to have the bitter matter between the kernel bred out; tin- butternuts and black walnuts to have their excess of oil turned into farinaceous and sugary matter, and their shells thinned and smothered by continued good breeding; when they will much surpass the European walnut. Lightning and Trees. A writer in the Hnilding Neir.s explains what takes place within the bark of a tree when struck by lightning. Most of us have seen the effects which arc here described, but not all of us can tell the reason why the tree has such an appear ance : In a tree which has been destroyed by lightning, the layers are not. only shat tered and separated into strips, but the wood also appears dry, hard, and bril tic, as though it had been through the process of curing in a kiln. This is attributed to the instantaneous reduction of the sap into steam. When the sap is abundant, as in May or early in June, the amount and force of the steam not only bursts and separates the layers and fibres, but rends the trunk in pieces or throws off a portion of it. When the amount of steam thus suddenly generated is small, owing to a dry condition of the stem from continual evaporation and self exhalation, there may be no external trace of the lightning-stroke; yet the leaves will wither in a few flays, show ing that the stem has been rendered in capable of conveying supplies, and the tree will cither partially or entirely die. Still lighter discharges may be conducted down the moist stem without any injury Auroral. When the sim comes brightly beaming In my toolroom at the morn, And I ’in lying idly dremning Os a rosy, bracing horn, When the dew-drop geniN the daisy. And the night mfat disappears, And I softly tuck the crazy - Quilt around my none and ears— When the tom-cat, never cheering, Doth no more the fence usurp, And the full-moon <lisapjx aring Htoj/s the barking of the purp, When J heard the merry chirrup Os the sparrows at the sill. And fond thoughts of cakes and syrup All my Ixdng subtly thrill When tiie milkman’s verbal volley Greets me like a blast from , And I am as melancholy As a bull without a ix 11. When upon my ) mortal MaD 1 Given the customary rap. Saying bmtkfast’s on the table— Then I turn and take a nap. - /Wf. WARNING TO A HUMORIST. ALEX. SWEET WRITES AN OPEN LETTER TO GEORGE W. PECK. Why the “Siftings" Man Would Dearly Like to Meet the “Bad Boy” Humorist. Alex Sweet, editor of Texas Siftings, publishes in his paper the following letter to George W. Peck, of the Milwaukee Sun and “Bad Boy” notoriety: Mv Dear Peck: While you were in New York a couple of weeks ago you called at the office of Texas Siftings, but I did not get to see you, as I waa not in at the time, but I found your card on my return. I mean on my desk, where you left it when you, yourself, left. In jus tice to you I will also state that I did not miss anything out of the office. It seems you did not improve your opportu nities. I was very sorry that I did not get to see you, for" I wanted to thank you per- » sonally for a favor you did me about eight years ago, when I was on the edi torial staff of the Galveston News. There are some doubt among the peo ple of Texas as to my veracity. Some few people intimated that I didn’t have any at all, but the general opinion was that I could tell the truth if it was to my inter est to do so, and I made an earnest effort. Just at this crisis I received the follow ing letter from you, which I published for my own vindication. After request ing in the letter the temporary loan of ninety cents, to enable you to purchase a pair of new pants, you went on towny in your letter: “I have never in my wildest dreams thought of competing with the Sifter as a truth crusher. lam an ordinary Wis consin liar. I have never had the advan tages you possess. My surroundings are not good for the development of genius in lying, as the community in which I reside is pious, anil I have no competi tion. No person can succeed unless ho has some competition to bring out the talent that lies hidden in him. Now, it is different down in Texas. You, al though you may be the champion, are not the only liar there. You have competit ors. Every man you meet has some claim to prominence, and your talent is con stantly being burnished. I would be only a nine-spot in Texas. I was there in 186(1, and I know what I am talking about. ” I fully appreciated this compliment. From that time on my status as a truth wrencher was fixed. Everybody in Texas had heard of Peck and his endorsement was all that was needed to be regarded as a talented journalist. I have often longed for the opportu nity to take you by the hand and thank you, and ask you when you were going to pay back the ninety cents I sent-you. This is why 1 am sorry I was not in when you called the other day. However, you inn remit either by postal note or check or both, if you see proper. I have to express my obligations to you for another favor. A few days ago, while putting on my new sixty-dollar overcoat, a disagreeable odor assailed my nose. I noticed it even after I got into "the street. On meeting me, people would gasp, hold their noses, and cross over to the other side of the street. Several dray horses shied and a mule fainted. When I entered the office of Texas Siftings everybody present snorted, and looked at me pretty much as a Texas pony does when it hears a brass band for the first time. There was a vo ciferous smell in the office strong enough to drive a dog out of a slaughter house. I received several kindly suggestions to consult, an undertaker, or a coroner. A gentleman who was about to sign a $2,000 advertising contract, dropped the pen and fled in wild dismay. He has never come back. I think he has left New York for his health. We have lost $2,000. Owing to the warm air in the office I readied into my pocket to get my hand kerchief to fan myself with it. When T pulled out my hand there was adhering to it a sticky mass which said “Limber ger” very plainly. It spoke right out. How do you suppose that Limberger got into my pocket? You don’t know, eh ? Well, let me tell you. I have a boy at home of alsmt nine years of age. Os late hi: has been reading a book called “Peck’s Bad Boy.” Ever hear of it? My boy, Norman, got that Limberger sug gestion out of that book. He it was who put that old cheese in my pocket. Ho said that was what Peck’s Bad Boy did to his pa. Well, lie don’t read that book any more. He can’t read even his Hunday school book now without lying on his abdomen to do so. I don’t feel safe for my life unless 1 know that boy is nt school or asleep. If you read of my fall ing down the stairs and breaking my neck in consequence of the steps being lubricated, or if I come to any other sud den and mysterious end, you may close your eyes at night with the consciousness of knowing that the diabolical suggestion that shoved me into the tomb originated in that infernal book of yours. When you send me that ninety cents, include in it the $2,000 ad. we lost through the Limberger cheese. I’d like to known when you arc coming to New York again. I want to meet you at the depot when the train comes in. You will be able to identify me by a large club which 1 shall wear in my right hand. How the coroner will be able to identify you after I get through with you is not very plain. Oh, come to the Ixiwer I’ve shaded for yen, And I'll make an effort to lie there Ux>. Yom true friend and future benefactor, Ai.ex Sweet. Shorthand. The latest abbreviation crank hails from Illinois. He registered at the Southside hotel thus: “Y & ct.” It was • deciphered to indicate “Wyanet.” Out in Kansas they always write Leaven worth “11 worth,” and Wyandotte “Y A.” All this is done in the interests of economy, not through indolence. There was a man once whose name was James Hole, and who was so lazy that in regis tering his name he simply made a “J” , and then punched a hole in the paper. John Underwood, of Andover, Mass., always signed himself: “Wood, J. Mass.” Chicago Mail.