AME tune, same words, same hour, and-the fifteenth of the month! Very curious! Exceedingly curious! Same reawakened memories of the winter spent in Stockholm ten years before. (I pulled the bedclothes snugger and drew up my feet.) My room in the Sgatan, the horrible condition of all the gatans, the slot, the Riddarhus, the café where I had heard that song, and the cold-the never-ending, relentless cold.

If I nad not been a bachelor and more fond of quiet than I used to be in the Stockholm days, I might have had a room in the front of the house instead of "the most rear room on the third floor," which had been consigned to me at my request. I might have stolen to my window, raised the sash, and peered out, thereby discovering the singer and noting his conveyance, if any, or other idiosyncrasies. The thing had happened three times before, a month intervening in each instance, and always on the nfteenth day. I had determined to get myself up and out on the door-step, on this fifteenth day of r'ebruary, but, with the failing of my kind, the seductive warmth of eider-down had hindered me from keeping my resolution. The fifteenth of March would not be as cold. I turned over and went to sleep.

That morning at breakfast I mentioned the occurrence, as I had done on the previous occasions, and, as before, all protested that they had been undisturbed by nocturnal melodies. They made what seemed to me to be rather unkind reference to my advancing years and the preservation of my faculties. But all their jibes and insults were alike unconvincing.

As a general thing, I don't like alarm clocks. They are obtrusive. However, on the fourteenth day of March I borrowed the cook's and put it at my bed's head. I have ceased to wonder why

breakfast is served with unerring punctuality the year round.

I appeared on the pavement at five minutes of five o'clock. The night watchman was passing, and betrayed some consternation-we are old friends and he is well aware of my aversion to early rising, due to late home-comingbut I offered no explanation. What business was it of his? I sat down on the steps. It lacked a minute of five. I started to light a cigarette. Just then I heard a window being raised, and, by the time I had turned around, four hea s appeared above the level of the windowsill, with a puny candle flickering in their midst, which gave them a ghastly appearance. As one man, they shouted:

"Pringle, my boy, come back to bed." I returned to the lighting of my cigarette, making no response. So then the four conversed among themselves. (I had no difficulty in hearing them.)

"Bob, Pringle is a fool."

"Nay, nay. Hearken thou! It is the IDES OF MARCH!"

"Ah, Pringle, my Pringle, BEWARE THE IDES OF MARCH!"

"Hearest thou not sweet strains of melody upon "

Williams did not finish that sentence. He heard a strange sound. So did the rest of us. A squeaking, rattling, uncanny sound. A vehicle was approaching. I peered through the darkness, endeavoring to distinguish its outlines. The driver slackened pace as he nearca the house and began to sing the song I had heard before. Then, indeed, it was I for whom all this singing had been done or at least some one in the house. But the rest of the boarders, including the owners of the four heads at the window, did not even claim to have been in Sweden, stoutly declaring, when I grew overly reminiscent of Scandinavia, that they had confined their attention to the south of Europe. I doubt that any of them ever so much as set foot on an ocean steamer. They are safe enough in making their boast, as far as that is con

cerned, for, Max falling ill in Copenhagen, we were forced to abandon our southern trip altogether.

I had harbored vague forebodings that after all my inconveniences-not omitting that detestable alarm clock-my serenader might not grant me the attention I considered my right. But this action of his was favorable. I rose and walked out to the street, determined to stop him on some pretext, if, after all, his favor to me consisted of serenading merely and not of conversation. sight of me he drew up close to the pavement and stopped.

At

"At last," he exclaimed, and, stepping from his wagon-I call it this for want of a better term-which was very low, he raised his hat with Swedish ceremony, shook hands and said in good English, but with an unmistakable Swedish accent:

"It is the Herr Pringle."

"You are right, my good fellow," I replied, "but who the devil are you?"

"That is it, that is it," he said stepping in again, and, moving to the farther side, he invited me to take the seat thus left vacant.

I had not gotten out of my bachelor's bed at that harrowing hour for nothing, and, if this were to be a part of the program, it was all the same to me. I looked up at the window. The light had gone out, but the four heads were still visible.

"Too pad you're not dressed, boys," I replied. "There's plenty of room for four more." I received no reply, probably because their mouths were all standing wide open.

As I stepped aboard, I found to my amazement that the conveyance was an old Norrland sled like the one I had traveled in mile after mile through the snows of the North. The Swede had mounted the thing on clumsy, broad, wooden wheels.

He gave rein to his horse, which from its size I had no doubt was Swedish like its owner, and we trotted down the avenue at a round pace.

"Where shall we breakfast?" I inquired, priding myself on the indifference of my tone.

"If the Herr Pringle will do me the honor, and my wife, the Herr Pringle will breakfast at my home."

I made no further comment on that subject, leaving the mystery to solve itself, or be solved later on by the Herr Stranger, as he should choose.

"You were singing as you came along. Do not let my presence be an impediment to the completion of the song, I beg of you," I said.

"You have heard the song before? Ah! yes, I was right. It is beautiful. Ten years, ten years in June." He appeared to be reflecting. Then he added: "Ah! the song! Yes, I will finish it, as the Herr Pringle does not object, but is, on the contrary, desirous to have it so."

He took up the first verse precisely at the note where he had left it, and sang the other four. The interval gave me time for reflection and observation. His voice was strangely sweet and the words of the song took me a many days' journey back to Stockholm. I pictured to myself the old café where Max and I found warmth and entertainment on many an evening. I was tasting again the Bajersktol to which we confined ourselves, chill as the weather was, considering from what we saw that it was the wisest policy, and could hear the halfintelligible Swedish deafening us on every side, and fragments of their songs. And, having gotten myself in this environment, the strangely appareled person at my side seemed strange no more, nor even my being in a sled on Ridge avenue.

My companion was robed in sea-otter. The similarity was strong enough to make me wonder if it were not my own with which I had parted at a loss, and consequently with great reluctance when I bade farewell to the North. His hat was a tall, black chimney-pot, his mittens of dog-skin. I could not see his boots, for we were wrapped snugly in a huge bear-skin robe. He was the counterpart of Max the day he bought his chimney-pot-just as chunky, just as outlandish, but perhaps not quite as disreputable-looking.

Max said we were losing caste by wearing sea-otter caps. So he made a raid on his bank-notes and purchased a hat.

1

I believe it was about noon when we left Lagerheim's with the sea-otter stuffed scornfully in Max's pocket. Max should have worn that hat at least a week in the seclusion of his own apartments before appearing publicly. In fact, I had urgently suggested it. But he saw no difficulty in preserving his native respectability without any such preliminaries. Consequently, as I say, we sallied forth from Lagerheim's with a chimneypot atop of my friend's globular form. have never seen Max walk with such erectness nor wear such an expression of austerity, but the hat-I will forbear. It would be too unkind. I suddenly remembered an engagement I had made, and, leaving him with great precipitation, returned to our rooms, took possession of the sofa, lighted a cigar and tried to picture him on his return. I had been enjoying this much needed and highly appreciated repose for what seemed to me a very short time, when an irate individual came stamping up the stairs, threw open the door, considerately left it standing open-thus concealing my presence, the very embodiment of compassion-and without a glance in my direction, without noticing the fumes of my cigar, strode to the fire with the thing, deformed and crushed out of all recognition, grasped viciously in his hand, and cast it from him. Then followed vituperations and strenuous observations in many tongues. When his resources were entirely exhausted, he muttered something about what he'd tell Pringle-I don't remember wnat it was, but it was a dreadful lie-and came over to shut the door. I was humming: "I wish I were an angel." It would have been fortunate, on the whole.

The song presently came to an end, and the Swede told me that we were about a mile from his home. I assured him that it was all the same to me. I rather think my indifference irritated the little fellow. It would probably have suited him better if I had been all impatience to know my destination and other ceteras.

"To whom am I indebted for this superb rendition of Sweden's most popular air of a decade ago?" I asked.

"To me," he said. "Ah!" said I.

I had consumed countless cigarettes before the beginning of that mile, and I consumed many more before its end. At last I began to realize that it was a Swedish mile. It seemed to me that we traveled always in a circle, but, whether so or not, nothing we had passed during the last hour seemed at all familiar, and I was becoming convinced that Pringle's desk would have to go unpringled that morning. Daylight had followed dawn and we were seeing all the peculiar and, sometimes, even shocking sights that are to be seen at that time of morning.

Finally with one Swedish and goodness knows how many American miles at our back, we turned in at a gateway whose gates were of elaborately wrought brass, and proceeded with decorous deliberation down the graveled drive. The house was of yellowish dust-colored brick, of which one sees so much in the Scandinavian countries. It was copper-roofed and the staircase was of iron. It stood

on a precipitous incline sloping from the front. The drive zigzagged down to a stable which backed against a high wall covered thickly with ivy. Here we stopped.

It was quite evident that I was not to be entertained in the big house at the top of the hill, and I had no desire to be entertained in the stable. I pulled out my watch. It was eight. And within me there was an unmistakable yearning for things material. My thoughts turned toward home and the cook.

I was not left in consternation long, for my companion alighted and opened a small gate in the wall. We entered a neat garden with beds of pinks and roses, potatoes and carrots. Below was a pure white cottage, which at closer range I found to be of the yellow brick painted over. At the door stood a lady whom I took to be the Herr Stranger's wife. Her face, like his, was unfamiliar to me. I was ushered in with great

ceremony.

Formalities and commonplaces preceded the breakfast. I learned that the name of my host was Helstrom, and that he was a gardener employed by the

owner of the property and occupant of the house we had passed. As every other man one meets in Sweden bears that name, I was not greatly enlightened. No other information was given me, and we ate in silence. My thoughts reverted to Williams. He would not have eaten a morsel. Williams is sure that he will meet his death from poisoning by some malicious person. The idea of anybody wasting time poisoning Williams!

I

I had about decided that this would be the last thing on the programme, and that I would be asked to leave shortly, when the three of us having risen from the table with great ceremony, an easy chair was set before the fire and I was requested to occupy it. I complied, whereupon Herr Helstrom and his wife excused themselves from the room. was left in contemplation of a curious stove which reached up and almost to the ceiling in a succession of fancy cast iron appurtenances. The pipe connected with the chimney about on a level with my head. I suppose these grotesque constructions are due to the same frailty of the Swedish mind that gave precedence to the chimney-pot hat. It did not occur to me until afterwards-until Williams suggested it, in fact-that I might have spent my time more profitably in contemplation of the possibility, almost probability, of murder at the hands of these strange people. I took them to be lunatics, though entirely harmless, and dismissed them from my thoughts for the time being. What possible interest I could possess for them, even though they had in some way discovered that I had traveled for two or three months in their native land, was beyond

me.

In a few minutes they returned, and Herr Helstrom placed in my hand what appeared to be a soiled roll of linen, about twelve inches in length, saying: "It is for the Herr Pringle, hoping that he will accept our thanks."

On unrolling it, I found it to be a pocket containing greenbacks. I took them out and counted them. They amounted to two hundred and fifty dollars. I had reason to remember the

amount. I scrutinized the two faces before me again, but without result. They were smiling benignly upon me, as one is apt to do when moved by unexpected generosity.

"Has the Herr Pringle ever seen the bag before?" asked Herr Helstrom, his wife smiling approval at his happy initiative.

I replied that I had and also banknotes to that amount.

"Has the Herr Pringle ever known the time when he was greatly in need of the two hundred and fifty dollars that he now has in his hands?"

I informed him that the Herr Pringle had always managed to subsist with decency.

"It is as I said, my wife."

They smiled at each other with satisfaction.

"It is a good God in all things," said the wife.

"The woman is right. Herr Pringle, I do not know what we would have done without your money. We had known days when food came but scantily. But, by the goodness of your charity at the very time that we had need of it, have we come to great comfort."

"My charity?" said I. "You term it curiously."

"Not yours alone, but yours and God's. The money came from you, the opportunity from God."

This fellow's coolness was amazing, his benignity increasing momentarily.

"I fear that you lack due reverence for things divine, that you part so willingly with a gift from your God," I said, extending the banknotes toward him, as if to allow him the opportunity of changing his mind-but of that I had no intention.

His wife confided to him that Herr Pringle was a pleasant man.

"This latter opportunity has likewise come from God," he continued, ignoring alike my remark and gesture. "When I had no more need of your green money, he pointed you out to me upon the street, and showed me where was your nome that I might communicate with you."

"Your God was less insistent upon ceremony in connection with the first