if I once put my nose outside the door? You can see the ugly black back of him now. (He flings open the door, to the confusion of the landlady, who has been listening at the keyhole.)

DR. JOHNSON (ignoring Goldsmith completely). Madam, it argues an amiable disposition on your part to manifest so strong an interest in Dr. Goldsmith's misfortunes. Have the goodness to enter and favor me with your explanation of these circumstances.

LANDLADY. Begging your pardon, sir, I 'm not a good 'and at hexplaining and such, but when a lone woman 'as two children and heverything to do for them, and gentlemen as 'as guineas to give away promiscuous and owe rent for months don't pay a penny, though the lad 's to be 'prenticed and 'is fees found-as good a lad as there is in the court too, though I say it as should n't-why, then, one time as well as hanother for the bailiffs, thinks I, when things come to be so houtrageous- (Stops, out of breath.)

DR. JOHNSON (very sternly, to Goldsmith). How, sir! Am I to understand that your indebtedness to this good woman has covered a period of months? (Goldsmith opens his mouth as if to speak.) Never bandy words with me, sir! She must be paid, and at once!

GOLDSMITH. That 's like your old kindness, Doctor, and I'll be sure to pay you when I get the next money from my old skinflint of a publisher.

Norm Pric

THE LANDLADY LISTENS.

DR. JOHNSON. Not so fast, sir; not so fast! Keep your compliments until they are wanted. For my own guineas I can find worthier employment (glancing meaningly at the table), but you shall set your

DR. JOHNSON. Better men than you have written there, sir, and to the glory of England, too! But your foolish errands can be done for you. Have you scribbled nothing of late that you have not sold before it was finished? No verses? The last-I should be wiser than to tell you-were as sensible as their writer is foolish. Nothing? (Goldsmith shakes his head.) Nay, sit down and look through this heap of rubbish (pointing to the open drawer full of untidy manuscript).

GOLDSMITH (looks blankly at the papers, picks up a ragged roll, runs through the leaves rapidly, shakes his head, and looks up doubtfully). I wonder would they give me anything for this? I'd completely forgot it. It's only a poor tale, though I liked it well enough when I wrote it. But I 've nothing else.

DR. JOHNSON. What sort of tale, sir? Is it a fable? Has it a moral?

GOLDSMITH. 'T is about a clergyman and his family. I'd thought to call it "The Parson of Wakefield," or some such name. I had my father, rest his soul, in mind when I wrote it; and I put in some of my own mad doings as well. There 's comfort sometimes in setting down your own follies in print. It seems like a way of getting rid of them. They 're not all so easy to get rid of, though, more 's the pity!

DR. JOHNSON. Here, sir! Cease maundering and let me look at your nonsense. (Settles his spectacles, sits down in an arm-chair, and begins to read.) "I was ever of the opinion that the honest man who married," m-m-m-m (turning pages). "The only hope of our family now was that the report of our misfortunes might be malicious or premature," m-m-m-m (turning pages). "I now began to find that all my long and painful lectures upon temperance, simplicity, and contentment were entirely

disregarded." (Turns pages for a while, seizes his hat and stick, and stalks out without a word. Goldsmith stares at the landlady in surprise; the children rush in.)

MARGERY (eagerly). Oh, sir! Will the old gentleman help you? He said, "Thank you, my little mistress," so kindly, when I picked up his stick just now, that I'm sure he 's not a great bear, as Dick calls him.

GOLDSMITH (sadly). He's a very good-hearted bear, if he 's one at all, Margery, and if anything can be made of a worthless fellow like me, the Doctor

(A heavy step is heard, the door is flung wide open, and Dr. Johnson enters, breathing hard, and wearing an air of great importance.)

DR. JOHNSON. Madam, what is the exact amount of my colleague's indebtedness to your establishment?

LANDLADY. Dr. Goldsmith, sir? 'E owes me fifteen guineas, come last Lady-day.

DR. JOHNSON. And the officer in the passage? What amount must be expended for the benefits of his presence?

will do it. But sometimes I misdoubt me that it can be done.

LANDLADY (sharply). There, now, Dr. Goldsmith, I don't 'old with hany one calling 'imself names! I 've 'ad a many lodgers in my time, and take them hall, bad and good, I 'd a deal rather 'ave shillings from you, sir, than pounds from the hother gentlemen, for you 've always a bit of a laugh about you for me and the young ones, and that halways 'elps a body through the day. But, you see, sir, I was that worried about the lad's fees for 'is 'prenticing that I was maybe a bit 'ard about the rent, but, indeedGOLDSMITH. Not half so hard as you had a right to be! It's a shameless scamp I am to be giving my guineas to such idle lads as were here last night, and there's none knows it better than myself. A sorry tale my life will be at this rate, with only debts and follies and maybe worse till the end of the chapter(He buries his face in his hands. Margery steals up behind him and lays her hand timidly on his shoulder.)

LANDLADY. It 's twelve shillings for the warrant, sir, and the stamp will be three more. 'E'll want two for 'is supper and ale, but I'll not give it. 'E 'd best get into an honest business and not come cluttering up folk's 'ouses with 'is great hugly self.

DR. JOHNSON. Here are sixteen guineas, Madam, and I desire you to pay the poor wretch's supper. 'T was by no fault of his that he came here.

GOLDSMITH (starting up). Which of the knave did you talk into giving sixteen guineas for that poor tale? I would never have believed it!

DR. JOHNSON. To be sure, sir, it would have been another story had you carried your wares to market yourself, for the booksellers have but an ill opinion of you at present. But there was no fear that any one of them would venture to say me nay, or waste words in cheapening what I chose to recommend. (Impressively) Mr. Newbery, your former publisher, has been pleased to purchase the work which you intrusted to me, and to send you a remuneration of sixty guineas.

GOLDSMITH. Sixty guineas! (Sinks back on his chair in astonishment.) Dick, lad, do you hear that? You shall have the finest jack-knife in all Cheapside, my boy, and Margery a new bonnet with flowered ribbons to it, for she was always sorry for me when pence were hard to come by. And I (rising and strutting up and down) shall be all the better myself for a little smartening. I'll have another look at that marvelous pretty plum-colored velvet I saw in Filby's shop last week. He 'll be sure to trust me for it if I pay something on the old bill, and- (Stops short, as Dr. Johnson raps violently on the floor with his stick.)

DR. JOHNSON (shaking his head solemnly). Nay, sir, a spendthrift you were born, but an honest man I'll make you, if this money (holding up a large leather purse) will discharge your outstanding accounts. There shall be no plum-colored velvets, I promise you, until justice is done. But (observing the downcast looks of the children) you, my little mistress, shall not be deprived of your finery, nor the lad of his promised toy.

GOLDSMITH (plucking up courage). Then, Doctor, you'll not leave me without a penny, like Simple Si

mon in the old rhyme? Sure, no tradesman will trust me with his wares, either.

DR. JOHNSON (firmly). And quite right too, sir. But to leave you four and forty pounds in your present state of mind would be sheer madness. Steady your wits, sir, by making a fair copy of your debts, to show me at five, when Miss Williams shall give you a slice of mutton in the Temple. On your solemn assurance that your creditors shall be satisfied without delay, the balance shall be yours, though it will be wasted on folly, I make no doubt. I have the honor to wish you good day, sir. (Claps his hat on, scizes his stick, and marches out, stopping a moment to pat Margery's curls as she curtseys to him.)

GOLDSMITH (with a sigh of relief). Ah, well! It's an ill wind that blows nobody good. Things looked black enough an hour since, and now, Margery, you'll be monstrous fine in a new bonnet, and Dick the cock of the court with his jack-knife. And I-I 'll manage to get that plum-colored velvet-with a taffeta lining, too-or my name 's not Oliver Goldsmith!

(Children clap their hands in delight; Landlady shakes her head at Goldsmith disapprovingly.)

JOEL CHANDLER HARRIS

"UNCLE REMUS"

BROTHER to the colored folk who sat in their cabins over the fire and told quaint tales before the rising of the moon; brother to the little creatures of the wild, to the wind and the flowers and the wood-paths, and uncle to every child he ever came to know, and to untold thousands he never saw, that was Joel Chandler Harris, teller of folk and fairy tales through many a happy year.

If you met him, you saw a man below medium height, stocky, with a stoop to his shoulders, stiff reddish hair, and a close-cut mustache of the same cheerful color. Besides that he had a twinkle. Indeed, the twinkle was the essential part of him, and it was n't till some one caught that important item with her camera that people who knew said, "Ha, here is a picture that really looks like Uncle Remus." Even the owner of the twinkle knew it, and saw that the photograph looked like him; for the twinkle was as much inside as out, and the inner twinkle was even more important and lively than the outer one.

When Mr. Harris thought of anything funny, and that was often, and started to tell it, he would begin by shaking with merriment. You would see him heaving away, chuckling at you, and presently out would come the story; and then you would begin to shake with merriment in your turn. He must have been the jolliest little boy in the world, and that even though things were what might have been called hard with him. For his father died while he was still only a baby, and his mother had precious little beside love and courage with which to bring him up. However, those two things are more powerful than many people dare believe, and Joel was safely brought up, even going to school at a time when schooling was not free as it is to-day. Then the Civil War came along. He was born December 8, 1848, so you see he was not far into his thirteenth year when that great struggle began.

Times grew a lot harder at once, and when the war was almost a year old, young Joel began to realize that he must do something to help bring food and clothes to the house. But no one seemed to want a little, red-headed boy for anything. One day, hanging about the post-office and general store of Eatonton, the little town in Georgia where he was born and had grown up, listening eagerly for war news items, the first copy of a

paper called "The Countryman" was laid on the counter. The lad picked it up, and almost the first thing he saw was an advertisement which read like this:

An active, intelligent boy, 14 or 15 years of age, is wanted at this office to learn the printing business. March 4th. 1862.

Mr. Harris goes on: "This was my opportunity, and I seized it with both hands," a characteristic with him all through life. The result was that he was accepted as printer's boy and type-setter by Mr. Joseph A. Turner, owner of the paper, which was a scholarly sort of sheet, something like "The Spectator" in London, though naturally on a much smaller scale. The office of this unusual paper was nine miles from a post-office, on a plantation, and a lonely place for a lad. But the young Joel loved it. Mr. Turner had a wonderful library, with many translations of the classics and books on all subjects. Joel found his two years and more on the plantation a liberal education, for his chief took pleasure in guiding his reading and in training the boy's alert, keen, inquiring mind. As his work was light, consisting mostly in setting a moderate amount of type during the day, he would hurry through it, and then browse in the library, or haunt the negro cabins with the little Turners, listening to the wonderful stories told by Uncle George Terrell, maker of delicious ginger-cakes and a delectable drink called persimmon beer. Another good teller of tales was Uncle Bob Capers, and there were more, not quite so distinguished. The Uncle Remus of days to come was a sort of composite of these old men.

Mr. Turner was a great lover of birds, and used to delight in making young Joel observe their habits with him, and in telling him about the various species and varieties to be discovered on the plantation; while Mrs. Turner was just as devoted to flowers, knowing as much of them as her husband knew of birds, and having the loveliest great garden, where she could be found at almost any hour of the day, fussing happily over her blooming beds and borders. Joel would join her there, listening to what she had to say in her soft Southern voice, glad to help her, and learning all the while to love nature and growing things with a deep affection and real knowledge. But with the end of the war came changes, and