plained how it would run a week without filling, while I would gain twenty minutes every hour by not having to reach for the ink-well at every line. Then I made a faint scratch on the paper with the new pen. I kept on scratching while the girls looked on with now really awakened interest. By and by I wore a hole in the paper, and never a stain of ink anywhere visible. "That's the nicest, cleanest pen," my sister said, "I If you would only use a fountain pen all the time I think we might venture to buy new carpets in the other rooms."

ever saw.

It always makes my blood run cold to hear quiet sarcasm from a woman's lips. It is chilling enough when it falls from the lips of an avowed infidel or an open idolater. But from a woman it is terrible. But I only said the room was so stuffy and warm the pen had got clogged. It was delicate as a thermometer, I said, and wasn't intended for use in a Turkish bath. I would remove the cap at the top, thus, and clear the ducts by blowing into it, thus.

Which I did, and blew two very slender but quite powerful jets of ink up into my face, on both sides of my nose. I never saw my family so completely overcome. At first I thought their shrieks were caused by fright, and that they were in agonies of distress on my account. But when I rubbed my smarting eyes clear of ink and began to reassure them, I saw they were in paroxysms of mirth, when I was stricken with blindness that might eventually destroy my sight. I assumed that patient, grieved, innocent, suffering look which my friends have told me would make my fortune on the stage if I would stick to "East Lynne" and "South Amboy" and similar plays. Then I thought my family would die. They begged me with swaying figures and broken voices to get mad and break things if I wanted to, but not to look that way until I had washed my face. There are circumstances under which pathos, however effective at the right time, is extremely trying to sensitive natures.

After we got things subdued a little bit I read the instructions and they told me to jar the pen slightly on the desk. I did so a few times and again drew some nice, clean scratches on the paper. I fooled with the thing until about half-past nine o'clock, when suddenly, without any warning, it began to give down like a prize Jersey. It was what the oil men would call a "spouter."

I said: "There, that is what it wanted," but had no time to explain what "that" was. I was too busy trying to think of something to write in order to keep up with the déluge. For the very life of me I couldn't think of anything but Philadelphia, and I kept spelling that with three l's. Then I struck in on "dear sir" and wrote half a dozen lines of it as fast as I could. It was terrible. There we were racing along, that demon pen booming away like a geyser, my nervous hand scrawling line after line of "dear sirs" after it, and my excited tongue coming along a bad third, but still fight ing for place.

Horror crowned the inhuman spectacle when the paper gave out, and the pen spitefully sputtering a tablespoonful of ink on the table cover, sullenly dried up and didn't shed another tear for nearly two weeks, although I did everything in the way of persuasion and compulsion except to blow in it. I have blown in a great many things since then, but never into a fountain pen.

The next evening the girls asked me if I was going to write some more with the new pen. I replied with some what formal and dignified asperity that I was. They said they were glad of it. That I was doing so much desk work that I needed exercise. They then left the room. Presently they returned with their gossamers on. They drew the hoods over their heads, raised their umbrellas, and opening their books began to read. This was annoying, but I did not say anything. There are times when the wisest words of man's wisdom are folly. But nothing happened that night. That is, nothing that my friends would like to see in print. The pen was

as clean as a candidate's record written by himself. Nothing was heard but its stainless scratching--that is, nothing to speak of.

Well, I gave that pen to an enemy and swore off. For some months I never touched a fountain pen, but a new one came out and I was induced to try it. It was a "duster," dry as good advice for nearly a week. Then it went off one day in the office when the city editor was fooling with it, not knowing it was loaded. I don't know what became of that pen. He threw it out of a six-story window, and I don't know where it went to. Since then I have suffered many things of many fountain pens. The last one I struggled half an hour with trying to date this letter. A fountain pen is a good thing, however, when you have a bottle of ink to dip it into about every second line, beginning with the first.

W'EN BILL SMITH GITS HIS 'CORDEEN OUT.

W'en Bill Smith gits his 'cordeen out

An' sez:

"Whut shell I play?"

Us others gether round er bout

An' tell him, "Fire away."

Then first he'll start an Irish chune

An ol' chune, ol' an' sweet

An' sings "The Risin' of the Moon,"
An' keeps time with his feet.

We waits until the c'orus comes
An' all jine in the chune,
While that ol' 'cordeen fairly hums

With "Risin' of the Moon."

The nex' song thet is played en sung

He sings it sof' and low.

It's 'bout a feller who was hung

Nigh thirty years ago.

"Young Johnnie Howard wuz his name,”

The 'cordeen soft'll play,

Ez if it thought it wuz to blame,

"They swore his life away."

The c'orus comes so low and sad,

The 'cordeen seems to sigh,

"How could they hang that gallant lad!" The tears stan' in each eye.

Then Annie Laurie, Nellie Gray,

An' Swanee River, too;
Good-by, I'm Goin' Far Away;

Here Comes the Boys in Blue,
The Mockin' Bird, an' Old Dog Tray,
An' Wearin' of the Green,

"Twas in the Merry Month of May
I First Met Maggie Dean,

I Think of You, The Sad Tears Fall,
My Ain Scotch Lassie Jean,

Then Home, Sweet Home, the best of all,
Upon the old 'cordeen.

An' so the hours slip away;
The ev'nin' don't seem long;
As long as Bill'll fur us play
Some good old-fashioned song,
An sing 'em, too, it pleases us,
Fur no one here about

Kin sound 'um sweet like Bill Smith duz
W'en his 'cordeen is out.

Talk o' yer fiddles, harps en things
An' players you hev seen,
I swar it's music when Bill sings
An' plays his ol' 'cordeen.

A CHRISTMAS LEGEND.

I wonder could I dare to trace
A legend lately told to me,
But when the time, or where the place,
Remains in dim obscurity.

'Twas near the merry Christmas time,
Three smiling boys their father sued
To grant them, ere the midnight chime,
The gifts would suit their various mood.
"A hobby-horse, with trappings light,"

One asked, "with flowing mane and tail,

With head and eyes so fierce and bright
Twould make the very gazer quail.”
"A noisy drum," another claimed;
"Twould set the very house astir,
Delight the comrades whom he named,
"And make them all so happy, sir."
The fair-haired child of genius sought
A violin of sweetest sound,

Whose minstrelsy, by heaven taught,
Might thrill the hearts of all around.

66

'Children," the pale mechanic said,
Sad gazing on his eager boys,
"By toil I scarce can earn my bread,
How, then, obtain such costly toys?"
"Father, you oft have told us how

Jesus came down on Christmas night
To bring great gifts, and surely now
We well may trust His love and might.
"Father, the Infant Jesus, He

Can give us all we want or ask ;
And, as He loves us, it will be
For Him a very easy task.

"Dear father, you can write so well,
Just write for us a little line,
And all we want, oh, pray do tell

To Him-we know he will incline.

"Tell Him how good we'll strive to grow,

And learn our lessons every day,

And seek our duty still to know,

And never, never cease to pray."

The father, glad their wish to grant,

As he had little to bestow,

Wrote that for which their hearts did pant;
And cheerfully he bade them go.

But oh, what joy, what hopes, what bliss,
Sparkled in every raptured eye!

In humble faith obtaining this,
They felt their happiness was nigh.

But how to post it posed each head,

The wind was blowing fresh and high;