and her curiosity as to just the exact situation in the body of the dead inches was beginning to gnaw most fiercely.

She rattled the gate. The captain turned his eye toward the sound. "Oh, hello there, Tibbles, bless my soul if it isn't you! Come in, little peeper, and make the old captain glad with a chat."

Tibbles needed no great urging, but notwithstanding her anxiety to probe the captain, his cordial invitation somewhat abashed her.

"Well, Tibbles, and how have you been? And where have you been keeping yourself?"

“Oh," said Tibbles, as she hopped upon first one foot, then the other. "Home some, school some, an' playin' some with the tots."

"And you never once thought of the old captain in all the long time?"

"Oh, yes, I did a heap."

"Oh, you did a heap. Now that is very gratifying, dearie, to an old, lonesome, sick man to be remembered in such quantity, and I trust I shall continue to be remembered according to the same scale. I'll think of you a heap if you will call to see me each day and give me all the refreshing news of totdom. Now, will you, Tibbles?"

Tibbles nodded assent with a quick jerk of her head. She was thinking that things were coming her way fast now. Then she looked at the captain with a pleased, satisfied countenance, and said: "Yes, I'll come. I'm coming, sure-er-I mean I'm coming anyhow. I mean when I see you here I'll come in-er-I mean I'm coming in, of course, to see how long you stay here-er-I mean, you know, how long it takes, and I want to find where it begins and what they look like. I guess you keep them covered up, though, now don't you, or do you mind if anybody knows about 'em?"

The captain was not getting the gist of this questioning plainly, Tibbles saw, so she must go at it again.

"Do you like the sun?"

"Do I like the sun? Yes, my little dear, I do. There's nothing else in this whole big world so enlivening and refreshing and restoring as California's sunshine and air. Don't you like it?"

"Yes, siree, I like it. It makes me hop

Do

and skip and feel so fine and live. your dead ones like it-er-do they come alive when you are in the sun ?”

"Hh, Tibbles, you've had a draught of sunshine, truly. Do my dead ones come alive in the sun? I don't know, little one, what dead ones you have reference to, but everything lives better for the sun or has a better chance of life from being in the blessed sunshine."

"I guess I mean the dead ones under the cap."

"Dead ones under my cap! What should you know of dead ones under a cap? There's nothing under my cap except a very bald head."

"Do they always get bald before they die ?"

"Some people do, dear. I think-at least that is my observation and partially my experience."

"Is it soft under the cap?"

"Soft? Well, I'll be honest with you, Tibbles, and say that I believe at times it has been very soft, but I kept it to myself. Others say that it is very hard under my cap, very hard indeed, but I'll confess to you, Tibbles, that despite the hard head the heart has a very soft spot in it."

I

"Oh, then, they're all inside and can't see them. Oh, I wish I could, though. Will you break in two when they all come down to the middle? Do they all get softy when they're dead or do they get hard and cold?"

"Evidently, dearie, all dead things get stiff and cold, but they can't feel it, so it doesn't hurt them. Couldn't you tell me of your live games and something of the news of totdom? You almost put an old man to thinking with your grewsome death talk. So I look like death to you?"

"Oh, no; all over the outside looks all right. I guess you keep the dead ones covered up. Huh!"

"I don't think, Tibbles, that the covered up part is any more dead than what you can see. Indeed, I am very much alive all over. I only want a little more breath -that is all."

"You can't guess what Johnnie Jones says about you. He says you wouldn't let anybody touch you for nothin', 'cause you would break to pieces an' there wasn't much left of you now."

The captain was weary. Tibbles could

see that his interest in replying was flagging. He said good-bye to her, and she was not half ready to go. She wasn't satisfied with the interview, but she meant to come again and again to try her luck of gathering exclusive information concerning the captain's case. And she could just see herself delivering proudly before the kids her great scoop-much to their chagrin, and putting to shame, by the rehearsal, their less alert reportorial instincts.

On the next morning, Tibbles appeared at the Captain's gate, as per invitation and resolution. To overcome the slight misgivings of her conscience as to the righteous charity of her mission, and to bridge the threatening gulf of dissension between her selfish intentions and the

captain's innocent acquiescence, she brought along a tiny mite of a baby, which her feminine intuition had suggested as universal peace-maker and accredited passport to the tightest heart.

The captain was occupying his usual place in the sunny east-side porch.

Tibbles plumped the baby carriage against the gate.

Let

"Hello. there, Tibbles; trying to break my gate down. Wait a moment. some one open for you. Stop! You'll batter the carriage to pieces!"

"Oh, no I won't. I always go in our gate this way. It's quicker than to wait for somebody. Guess what's here."

"Can't," said the captain. "What is it?" "Well, now, you a big man and can't even guess what is wheeled around in a baby carriage."

"Oh, I see, now. It's a baby, a real live baby."

"You don't have any babies here, do you ?"

"Well, no, Tibbles, there never was a baby around my house, much to my deprivation of pleasure, no doubt, and perhaps also my lucky escape from auricular annoyances. You see, Tibbles, the captain's wife has enough trouble with a sick husband to take care of."

"Yes," said Tibbles; "that's what they say you are trouble enough and dyin' by inches!"

"What's that? Where did you hear such stuff! By Jove, dying by inches. Who said it, Tibbles ?"

"Oh, nothin', captain. I's just talkin' Ain't you got no pets, though, nothin' at all 'round here to coddle?"

Tibbles

The captain was perturbed. wished she had not been so bold. Now she wondered if this slip of her lip would serve to block her speedy discovery of the dead inches.

"Nothing to pet! Why, dear, bless me, yes. No one can live without something to pet. I'll show you my cats, the prettiest you ever saw.

"Oh, is that all-just cats?" as she looked down upon the mother cat and five squirming kittens.

"Yes, that's all-isn't that enough?" "May be," said Tibbles, "but I thought somehow 'twould be a canary bird or a Shetland pony."

"Ha, ha, Tibbles! What do you think the captain would do with a canary bird or a Shetland pony. He's too fidgety to stand the noise of the bird's song and his legs are too long for riding a pony. Ponies are for little folks like you.'

"Yes, I know, and I wish I had one, too. I was thinkin' maybe he" "Thinking what, Tibbles ?"

"Oh, nuthin' much-just thinkin' to myself."

"Tell me out loud what you were thinking to yourself, Tibbles."

"Oh, well, I was thinkin' if it's a canary bird they won't let it starve, and if it's a pony somebody will be needed to care for it when-er-when, I means, when you've done with 'em."

"That's right, Tibbles-so I see you wish something to remember me by. Well, how would you like a kitten? They're not so much trouble as either bird or pony and they're easier to coddle."

"I think I would like one, the dear little furry thing."

"You may have the tortoise shell fellow. Isn't he pretty?"

"Umh-humh!"

And this one the captain placed upon her shoulder, and said: "Now, take Hugo to remember that the captain is your dear friend."

The gift of this kitten signified to Tibbles that she must be getting along at least not poorly in the confidence of the captain, and that his esteem of her would be much promoted by their mutual interests

in the kitten. Tibbles' heart leaped when she had thought all this out, and her joy at one more triumph over the tots so exhilarated her that she heard not the loud wailing of the baby protesting against her cruel forgetfulness of his rights to attention.

Not only the babe was incensed at Tibbles' evident absorption in the captain's existence, but the tots around the corner were noticing, and with no real relish, that Tibbles had allowed the captain to supersede them in her regard, and for this disloyalty they began to taunt poor Tibbles unmercifully.

When she told them of her beautiful kitten they all cried at once: "Mange, mangy, or the old captain would never have given it to you!" And the cold reception they would give her when she essayed to attach herself and crying baby to their train was enough to shake all confidence in humanity. Her little crushed spirit would rebound elastic through all their taunts and mistreatment whenever she thought of her friend the captain. And she admitted to herself that she yet had a weapon which would lash them back into respect for her and hers, and forever cure their resentment-when she could flinchingly stand before them and deliver important and exclusive information about the dead inches.

un

Oh, those dead inches! Yes, they were to be thought of. "Twas her hearing of them that had suggested these visits to the captain-but when they should come to the last, and carry away her good captain for all time! Then, oh, what would she have to support her feelings when the tots should jeer at her? Where would she go day after day when minding the crying baby?

She wished there were no dead inches, and she wondered if something could not be done to save the captain. She thought she would rather have the captain alive and spared to her now than to know all in the world about dead inches. And she gave a great gulp, and her heart seemed to stand still when she thought he might be even now dying to the last.

To add to her grief, Billy Smith sicked his ugly dog onto her pretty Hugo, and ran him all over the country till Hugo escaped by jumping into an open shaft,

from which it took some time and several men to rescue him.

Tibbles was guilty once more of a mental reservation, and that was to get even with Billy Smith for this inexpressible outrage. She meant to tell the captain on Billy Smith, also.

When she appeared at the captain's place, bent upon relating Billy Smith's rudeness, whom should she find peering between the pickets but Billy himself!

At sight of this malfeasance, Tibble's outraged feelings loosed themselves. She flew into Billy Smith with a swiftness and agility which he had not counted upon. She flung his hat into the gutter. She ripped and tore his suspenders and loosed every button in his shirt; pounded him on the head and pulled his hair till he cried out more than "nuff."

Tibbles had clearly gained a victory, but her little heart was to experience the hardest shock it had yet had. When she went in to the captain, he was not therehad gone away!

She went home to bubble over in tears for her dear captain was gone, and she knew not where. Then she prayed that the good Lord might make the dead inches all alive and send the captain back to her.

Many long days went by-long, so long to Tibbles, for she was nursing a grief and bearing her sorrow all alone. She dared not go among the tots for fear of a repetition of the pantomime between herself and Billy. The baby was tiresome company, but the kitten, oh, what comfort now was the tortoise-shell Hugo. He became not only her playmate, but her confessor as well, and Hugo received many embraces and affectionate strokings as she thought and talked of the captain.

This vacation time, during which Tibbles had experienced the most pleasant sensations and also felt the bitterest grief which she thought could ever come to one, was now come to a close, and Tibbles was glad to enter school again for its diverting influence. Her only worry was the fear of a revival of taunts from Billy Smith's crowd. But she found this possibility greatly obviated, in that the rules were made more strict than formerly-that boys could no longer hang around the door in wait for the girls, and she noticed

to her great gratification that a new close board fence had been erected between the playgrounds with not even. a knot-hole through which Billy Smith could stick out his tongue at her to exasperate her. In her heart she thanked the school board for these beneficent repairs.

The teachers noticed a change to calm in Tibbles' disposition. She was very studious. She didn't play with her usual zest, and she paid more than her usual former attention to the devotional exercises. She asked a great many questions of her instructors concerning the answer to prayer. She asked to be instructed as to the meaning of faith. This lead her instructors to announce that Tibbles was of a theological mind. But Tibbles had a worry on her mind which she wished dispelled-how many prayers and how much faith it would require to bring back the captain.

When preparations for Thanksgiving were stirring at Tibbles' home, she was given her usual part to play in bringing about the successful fulfillment of these preparations: namely, the care of the baby.

'Twas a long time now since Tibbles had passed the captain's house, but the idea struck her, which in some measure

compensated for her impressment. She would wheel the baby by the captain's house-just to see!

Her heart began to beat furiously, and her amazement was tremendous, as she neared the house and saw some one sitting on the little east-side porch! It looked for all the world like the captain! It was the captain!

Tibbles' walk became a run; a scream of joy broke from her lips; the baby was left quite forgotten. Tibbles hurried up the walk, threw herself into the arms of the captain and cried out her misery, now broken by the greatest happiness, upon his willing shoulder. She asked the captain if he had melted all away and then came together again.

He explained to Tibbles the error of the neighbors' predictions, and said that her words about the dead inches had alarmed him so he had taken flight to the beautiful Yosemite, then into the high Sierras, where three months of perfect rest and good breathing had restored him to her.

Tibbles went home the happiest little girl in the block, and she knows just how much California sun and air with prayer and faith it takes to bring to life dead inches.

It is an age wherein the machinery of life has a myriad wheels. It is an age that has plundered all ages, forward and back; rummaged the past for wisdom which it has not followed, and undermined the future with a greed it does not explain. It is an age of travel and worldround messages, of electricity and wires and wonders of which no one man knows the structure and very few entirely understand the theory. The user knows not what he uses. It is an age of Babel building in which men make machines that outdo the work of men. The world is found to be a sphere, whereas formerly flat. And this vast sphere these testy men have taken to themselves and woven with waterways and bonds for instantaneous news. The world is become a new fabric. Whatever transpires in any part is published that day the world over. The hod-carrier at breakfast reads the death of princes the night before at the other end of the earth's diameter. Man journeys over iron roads and skims the ground in vehicles that propel themselves. In short, the thin schoolboy has mind of more particulars than the heaviest-browed pundit of yore would have dreamed of or believed had any one else dreamed of. He begins far in advance of the ancient sage's last lesson; and yet (and perhaps therefor) the an

cient one in some matters is never equaled. We live in a republic. It has waxed so large and so quickly that few of us understand what it is, or what it may eventually be. It extends from an ocean to an ocean; the one once unexplored; the other once unknown. It is populated with all the earth's populations; most of whom use ill the Goddess of Liberty's language and none of whom are familiar with the speech of all the others. It is a nation of many races. Its peoples have many complexions and many creeds. In fact, they are so varied that they agree on nothing at all, yet all in all, are the most agreeable people in the world.

Such is the Republic. We live in it and love it. Rather, it fascinates us.

Its chief officer is a President, who is elected by citizens that for the most part never saw so much as the back of his head; and of whose homes, not one city in a thousand has he ever entered.

Cities that are thousands of miles from one another make laws for respective obedience.

The President represents all the people, although almost half have voted against him.

In a republic all men are equal; the highest is no better than the lowest; yet there is a high and a low.

Its main trait is an abomination of despotism; yet it is maintained in dignity by the two most austere of despotisms, the army and the navy.

A republic hates kings and crowns, yet deals with these by means of the utmost diplomacy and flattery.

The people make their own laws, and punish themselves for their own misdeeds.

These laws, in the aggregate, are made by Congress; that is, by the majority of that body, which may consist of two minorities of the preceding and of the current election.