“Oh, it’s my fault, I guess,” said Hodges, when his wrath had subsided. “I told old Elrod, but I ought to have told you, too. Then I rode along for four mortal hours sucking that bottle of foolkiller, and didn’t have sense enough to look at my watch once. Well, well! I’ll just charge it up to Hodges, and see it don’t happen again.” Though Eli was not to blame, he was inconsolable, till Hodges gave him a dollar at parting. Tears of gratitude stood in the old man’s eyes. “Good-bye, Stranger,” he said. “I do hope old man Elrod won’t find out about you bein’ late. He’d be powerful pestered to know you’d been disappointed. Good-bye.” And as he drove away, he muttered to himself: “Darn the feller! I think he might have offered to fill my bottle.” The modern lecturer is the alarm clock of civilization wound up to go off with a whiz and a bang at any hour in the evening, according to the whims of his audience. A Northern audience wants to be aroused at 8 P.M. sharp, a Southern audience anywhere between 8.30 P.M. and daylight, A.M. But some time in the night he is sure to wake the natives, for he is a traveling gesture tied to a bell clapper and When his hands begin to swing And his bell begins to ring His waking listeners laugh and weep And then, alas! go back to sleep. But still he screams and fights the air And stamps his foot and pulls his hair And growls and roars upon the stage Like some fierce lion in a rage, Until at last his clock runs down And he winds it up for another town. Selah! —_Robert L. Taylor._ [Illustration] THE MAN AND THE MATINEE BY SYBIL STEWART There was a ring at the door, a light tripping of feet up the stairs, a swish of skirts in the hall, then a quick little tap at Mabel’s door. Mabel had looked up from her book at the first of these sounds with the eager interest an invalid must feel in any interruption to the long day. At each succeeding sound her face grew brighter until she cried a cordial, “Come in,” and, as the door flew open, added, “There, I knew it was you and I’m awfully glad. You are as good as a breath of the blessed out-doors.” And she kissed the newcomer’s glowing cheeks. There was a general breeziness about Cora that justified Mabel’s words. She sailed into the room, veils fluttering and skirts rustling, kissed her friend swiftly and settled upon the arm of her chair like a bird on a bough. “But, Angel of Peace, there’s nothing blessed about me. I’m in another scrape.” She opened her big eyes impressively upon her audience. The audience sat up in her chair and asked with interest, “What disagreeable thing has happened now?”