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inexperience? A plan began to form itself. To give her experience she must have some vivid shock, some rough realization that Paul B. Clarke was a cad.

He had taken the offensive; Harold Brown had played the neutral, never in the way, yet always about for a word or a glance when the American divinity should think to give them. One would have said that he had quietly withdrawn and like a wise man made little of his wounds. He was to take déjeuner that noon with Ransom at Lavenue's. When the two men had come to cigarettes and coffee, Brown remarked,

"Passage engaged?"

Yes," Ransom looked at his companion suspiciously. He might be deeper

than he thought.

the first of next month, I hear."

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Yes, so Miss Green told me.

well be the business engagement; it might not. No matter what it was, it would serve

merely to have Miss Clover see him coming out of his apartment with that woman. She was in an inflammatory mood and had her share of unreasonableness. One little match would do the business.

There was a cochers' cabaret within a few doors of number 10, where Ransom seated himself and wrote the following note:

DEAR BROWN: Get Miss Green to take a walk; discover an errand on rue Troncret, at the end of rue Vignon. Walk slowly down the right-hand side of rue Vignon, timing yourself to arrive opposite the Madeleine end at four o'clock. Go

"The International is to make its début into the print shop, select some prints, and leave something behind you. Then walk slowly back. When you have reached the Boulevard go back again. Be sure to follow exactly these directions."

Have

you heard anything more about him?"

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• Pretty troubled water the fellow fishes in. But you can't tell whether it's business or personal. He is angling for big game, with the help of that Brazilian countess. That might explain his intimacy there."

I mean to find out."

P. R.

This he dispatched by a garçon in a cab. Four o'clock came. A carriage drove up leisurely. Then Brown and Miss Green Brown brushed the ashes from his ciga- walked up the quiet street, strolling slowly, rette sceptically.

"I have something in mind. See here, Brown, hang about the house this afternoon. Call at their rooms about three and help me out, if I send you word."

Brown smiled at his companion's "American vagaries," and paid his reckoning.

"All right, as you say; I'll be ready for the call and make my appearance on time."

With that they parted. Ransom took a cab to the rue Vignon, behind the Madeleine, whither Clarke had moved. A month or so ago Ransom had had plenty of invitations to call and had never expected to do so. But he remembered the number10, entresol. While his cocher was hunting for the number, another cab drove up, and two people got out-the pair he was afThe woman turned and spoke to her

ter.

driver.

"What did that lady say to her cocher?" Ransom asked his cabbie.

"Venez une heure plus tard." His plan was made. A marvellous chance was helping him out. This might

and talking. Miss Clover was impressive in an enormous hat. She carried herself firmly. They went on to the end of the street and entered the shop.

Thereupon Ransom passed a nervous five minutes. Would they all hit it off to meet at the right moment? He had given them four chances; one had been lost. At last he saw the shop door open and the young pair come out. The cocher at the curb of No. 10 also woke up and touched his horse. He had seen his fare. Thirty seconds more would have fetched matters. Now the couple down the street were loitering too far away. It was maddening.

Ransom rushed out of the cabaret and flung himself into the waiting cab, thrusting a louis d'or into cocher's fat hand as he passed him. "Vite," he said. The cabbie drove away, lashing his horse. He never questioned the argument of a twenty-franc piece. Ransom, looking out of the slit at the back, could see an astonished pair standing at the curb. There wasn't another cab in sight. Clarke turned to look

for one, and down came Brown and Miss Green straight upon them. Then Ransom's carriage whisked him around the Madeleine, and he could see no more. What had passed he learned two hours later at Madame Cuano's. Brown was sitting before his fire.

"It was sudden enough to take your breath away. I was explaining to her something about the pillars of the Madeleine, and she had her head turned away from the street, looking at the building. We almost stumbled on Clarke when he turned about. He opened his mouth, and let his jaw wag for a moment or two; then he said, Why, Clover, how' But that pause had been enough. She took in the whole group at a glance, looked hard at the Comtesse, whom she knew by sight. Then she gathered up her skirts, backed out of his way, with a little bow, and sailed

on.

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'You were saying, Mr. Brown,' she said. The nerve was splendid, poor girl! But that walk back was not pleasant. She was so sweet and interested, but I was afraid almost to let her cross the streets.' "Um, we'll see how much good it will do."

Clarke came that evening enough to strike at once.

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he knew "If he stays an hour," Ransom reflected, "she is lost." Just thirty minutes passed before he heard Clarke's footsteps on the stone stairs. Elated by this dispatch in their interview, he fidgeted about for another quarter of an hour, and then knocked on the baize door of Mrs. Sollow's little salon. When she appeared, a good deal of a wreck, Ransom said, abruptly :

"I have come to say good-by. I shall leave Paris in a day, Mrs. Sollow, and we must be frank with one another. Have you any intimate friends in Paris? Any business connections?

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the next morning, armed with this, he was on his way again to rue Vignon.

If Clarke was astonished at seeing him, he knew enough not to show it. He was smiling and effusive as ever, pressing his visitor's hands with tenderness in his most characteristic fashion. They chatted for a few minutes about the International.

"Great success, Mr. Ransom. Do you know I believe I have fallen on the idea of the age in literature, cosmopolitanism ! And we are very successful in our backers. I may tell you in confidence we have just secured the interest of one of the great bankers in Paris to float part of our stock."

"I am glad of that. For I came partly on business, on urgent business. You will doubtless be able to pay over at once to Morgan, Harjes & Co. $20,000 that you obtained from Miss Green." "And may I ask- ?"

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Certainly." Ransom showed him the power of attorney. He looked at it.

“A feminine document," he smiled. "Miss Green will receive twenty bonds of the company at par, and some preferred stock, all of which she may dispose of as it seems best to her."

"You will not pay the money as I direct, then?"

"Certainly not!"

"I think we can settle this business without a row." Ransom looked at his man. "Paul B. Clarke I know well enough, and we will deal on the assumption that I know how you are floating your schemes. If you do not give me assurances that I am willing to accept that you will pay this money in twenty-four hours, the International will not appear, not even the first number."

The two argued that point for an hour, and at last Clarke was convinced. They drove to the bankers and secured $18,ooo, all that Clarke had on hand. As they separated on the stairs of the bank, he said:

"Of course I could not expect to ruin myself by marrying a nobody like that. Perhaps you don't mind shop-worn goods? Send me a card."

And Ransom did not meet Paul B. Clarke again. The International saw its third number.

Ransom felt justified on his way home

in stopping at the steamship office to put off his date of sailing for a fortnight.

V

RANSOM took good care that Mrs. Sollow should know the details of his conference with Clarke, as far as that beastly last remark. Miss Green had not appeared since his return. That evening, however, while he was having a cigar in the garden, one of the salon windows opened, and she stepped forth.

Ransom felt a little tumult of exultation, as she crossed the gravel to where he was standing beside the old ivy. The last glimmer of light was fading from the western towers of Notre Dame. The organist of St. Severin was practising some bass fugue that threw a certain solemnity into the evening. The pension was still at table, busy over the Mademoiselle Clover mystery, which had leaked a little. It was whispered that Miss Grayer had written a sonnet about it.

"I couldn't let you go without seeing you and thanking you for all you have done," the note of humiliation in her clear voice was awkward. "I ought to tell you that I see you were right. You conquered after all!"

That word 66 conquer" upset Ransom. "I am not going, at least at present." She threw him one searching glance as if to estimate the price which he might expect for his prophecies, advice, and service.

66 'You are detained?"

"You said once that women grow to love their masters, those who have helped them."

She turned half away as if chilled by the night-air, which was coming in freshly from the Seine.

"Did I? I have learned that one must be careful in the choice of masters ;" a little mockery lurked in this speech.

Just then Brown strolled into the garden, the first time Ransom had found him inopportune.

Miss Green smiled at Ransom, and walked back to the house.

"What a heavenly night!" Brown remarked. There was something so platitudinously calm and assured in this observation that Ransom felt convinced that a wedding might come from the intimacies of the pension. It could not be his, however.

The direct method of attack, at any rate in the case of women, struck him at that moment as futile.

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THE YEAR'S CROWN

By Charles Prescott Shermon

SPRING has her changeful skies, her waking leaves-
Summer her lavish dower of bloom and balm:
And Autumn has her days of golden calm-
Rich pauses when, forgetting she bereaves
The world of Summer, she no longer grieves.

She smiles, "How well-beloved a queen I am!"
Lingering to hear the land's Thanksgiving psalm
For wealth of fragrant fruit and garnered sheaves.
But Winter is the monarch of the year

When wild winds make the giant pines their harp,
And joy of Christmastide is at the flood.

Only to those who miss a presence dear

The thorns of Winter's holly-crown are sharp,
And all its berries gleam like drops of blood.

T

SQUIRE KAYLEY'S CONCLUSIONS

By Sarah Barnwell Elliott

HERE is a certain family likeness in all small country towns that is quite consistent with a wide divergence in manners and customs, and one thing common to all is a "leading citizen." He is generally a good man, for after all it is the upright who best weather the storm and find permanent haven in the faith of their fellow-men.

The town of Greenville, like all her family, was extremely self-important, and when her "leading citizen," Mr. Joshua Kayley-commonly called Squire Kayley -was sent to Congress, Greenville became absolutely sure of the large place she filled in the public eye, and felt glad for the rest of the world that a teacher should go out from such a place as Greenville. In return, Squire Kayley felt deeply grateful for the honor done him; was proud of his town, of his county, and of his State, and

went to his post determined to do all possible credit to his native region.

As has been intimated, Squire Kayley was an upright man; he was also a modest and an observant man, honestly desirous of thinking and doing right, and when he reached Washington he found much food for thought. He did not make many remarks during his term of office, but in a quiet way he made many investigations, and arrived at some astonishing conclusions. He found, among other things, that the West and the South were looked on as being uncivilized because of what in those regions were called "difficulties," not to speak of lynchings and other modes of supplementing the law.

He found out also, that in quieter regions, instead of "a word and a blow," people brought action for "assault and battery," and "alienating affections," and

"breach of promise," and the rest of it— delicate matters which in his experience had always been settled by a bullet or a caning. Not being a bloodthirsty man, he pondered much on these things, and determined at last that he would try the experiment of making his native town more lawabiding. It was a herculean task, and he had serious doubts as to his success, but he was determined to try, for although Greenville could not boast that every man in her graveyard had died with his boots on, she could nevertheless bring to mind a long list of sons who had begun their march on the "lonely road" well shod.

He was sitting on the hotel piazza with a number of his constituents one afternoon after his return home, and while a negro handed about glasses filled with a topazcolored mixture, crushed ice, mint, and straws, Squire Kayley told this story.

"A man up yonder," he began, "made some remarks about another man, a stranger from another region of the country; a few days afterward the man was on the cars when the stranger walked up to him and, taking him by the nose, pulled him all the way down the car."

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Gosh! exclaimed one listener.

• “Did you stay for the funeral?" asked another.

"He didn't shoot," Squire Kayley answered; "he brought in a charge of assault and battery, and got two thousand dollars damages."

His audience groaned.

"You needn't groan," the Squire went on, with a steadiness in his tone and words such as a man puts into his actions when he is about to light a fuse-" that feller had a level head. He had followed so quick that his nose wasn't hurt, and two thousand dollars is a lots better poultice for a man's honor than a feller-man's blood."

A dead silence followed this remark, and Squire Kayley, tilting his chair back against the wall, pulled gently at the straw in his glass. After a few moments a young fellow sitting on the railing of the piazza asked:

"An' you'd sue for damages, Squire ?" "I ain't sure, Nick," Squire Kayley answered, slowly. "I hope I won't be tried, but I think the fellow had a level head."

"An' two thousand dollars is a heap

er money," said another young fellow, thoughtfully.

""Tain't so much the money, Loftus,” the Squire answered," as not shedding blood. They're lots more peaceable up yonder than we are, and they haven't got it by killing each other, either; and they're lots richer, too, and a good deal of it has come through being law-abiding."

"Dang my soul, if you ain't changed!" cried an old fellow, jerking his rockingchair round so as to face Squire Kayley. "I'd noticed thet you'd smoothed your words a heap, an' had cut your hair short, an' shaved your face clean, but I hedn't looked for no fu'ther change, an' this is too much when you say you'd let a feller pull yo' nose an' be satisfied with two thousand dollars.”

"I'd let you pull it for one, Uncle Adam," Squire Kayley answered, smiling.

There was a general laugh, but not a hearty one, for their leading citizen was announcing doctrines that would have branded any other townsman as a coward.

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"There was another man," the Squire went on; a feller began to carry on with his wife; we'll suppose that he did what he could to stop it, then after watching awhile and seeing that things were hopeless, he brought action for alienating his wife's affections and gained his suit and five thousand dollars."

“Damn it, man, you didn't think thet was right!" Uncle Adam cried again, growing very red in the face, while the other listeners looked at the Squire pleadingly as if imploring him not to commit himself beyond redemption.

"Why not?" the Squire asked, taking another pull at his straw-" nothing could heal the hurt the woman had done him, and a woman as far gone as that didn't deserve to have blood spilt for her, and to leave her on the other feller's hands, at the same time taking away his money, seems to me the most dismal punishment on the face of the earth."

"But, Squire, could you have held yourself?" cried Nick.

"I ain't sure," the Squire answered, again," and I won't be tried, being a bachelor; but that feller had a level head."

Loftus did not venture to remark again on the money, and Uncle Adam and the

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