EDITOR'S TABLE.

"There is none cheerful, no, not one," said the Saint. "Perhaps it's because they want to write something deep, and they think that the only deep things are tragic things."

"That's not true!" I cried hotly. But he continued undisturbed:

"Why, I remember a heeler who made a story of a lonely man with a can of beans, who had nothing to open it with. Did he make fun out of it? Did he picture the increasing frenzy of the man as he tried to open the tin with a stone, and only succeeded in denting it? Did he make him try to melt the solder in the fire, and get the thing so hot that he could only gaze vengefully at it while he waited for it to cool? Did he get one laugh out of the whole situation? I'll tell you. He put his man on the fields of the polar ice-cap, or some equally cosy and frequented place. The man is the last of his party and the can of beans his only food. And nothing to open it with! He, who has so much to live for, must perish there wretched and alone. He tears at the can with broken and bleeding finger-nails, but fails to attain the desired effect. He hurls it far from him in senseless fury, and then goes and drags it up again out of the snow and croons over it joyfully. He thinks of the happier, warmer days, before he got interested in science and started for the Pole. and of all the varied hot things he had to eat then. The arched steel heavens glare pitilessly down upon him and he dies raving, clutching the can to his breast."