I discovered, however, one night, that the little lady was very much afraid of the dark, just as some of her older sisters are prone to be, and all her mother's persuasive eloquence was required to induce the child to leave the brilliantly lighted dining room for her own dark bedroom. [Illustration] A whispered colloquy between mother and child finally resulted in the little one's departure to her room without further protest. When the mother returned to the dining room she explained: "It's so easy to handle children if you just know how. I told her there was no reason to be afraid; that the dark was filled with angels, all watching over her. Now she is quite content to be left alone and----" "Mamma! Mamma!" piped a small, far-away voice at this point, "please come quick. The angels is a-biting me." [Illustration] While I was talking with Mike who should drop in but the archbishop? Now, because a man's a priest is no reason he shouldn't have a big streak of humor in him, and the archbishop can appreciate a joke as well as the next one. They say that when he was up in the Harlem district last winter, for the purpose of administering confirmation, he asked one nervous little girl what matrimony was, and she answered: "A state of terrible torment, which those who enter it are compelled to undergo for a time to prepare them for a brighter and better world." "No, no," remonstrated the pastor; "that isn't matrimony; that's the definition of purgatory." "Leave her alone," said the archbishop; "maybe she's right. What do you or I know about it?" Thinking to test his knowledge of history, some one once remarked in his hearing: [Illustration: Ye First After Dinner Speech] "I wonder who made the first after-dinner speech?" "Adam did," replied the archbishop, promptly, "for you know we read that after he had eaten that apple down to the core, he arose and said, 'the woman tempted me'." And you will agree with me he was pretty nearly correct that time. I always take considerable interest in the yacht races for the America's Cup, and when my friend Donovan informed me recently that the next boat would have a wonderful rudder filled with air, to add to the buoyancy and save weight, I began to consider whether the advantages might not be offset by the new dangers accompanying a pneumatic rudder. If a yacht should happen to get a puncture in her rudder during the race she would be compelled to drop out, owing to the difficulty of cementing or plugging it while sailing. And in a race a yacht is liable to be on a tack at any moment. [Illustration] A week ago I took a spin on my wheel, along country roads where the festive bull loiters in the shade of the tree, waiting for a victim. If you have ever taken the trouble to notice, there are funny things sometimes happening on these dusty highways of the hobos, and more than a few times the shrewd city man finds himself the sport of Rube's wit.