You can make a telegraph key. Make a walnut or oak base four by eight inches. Erect two uprights in the centre, one inch apart and two inches high. Put between them a wood lever six inches long. In one end of the lever insert a common screw, and from the base raise a metal contact--a common nail will do--about two inches back of the uprights. Any metal surface, as two brass buttons, will do for the screw and nail to "click" against, a hand-pin may be made from the end of a common spool. This key, of a good pattern, may be bought for $2, in brass. You can get along without a "sounder." Get some practical operator to show you about the alphabet. Do not try to learn it from instruction books. If you do you will be sure to learn at the same time many faults. We want good riddles--new, not old ones. * * * * * Costa Rican Country Life. Costa Rica, or, translated into English, "rich coast," is the most progressive of the Central American republics. The people are very home-staying, that is, they do not like to travel, as do the English and Americans. They all seem to like their country, and rightly too, for there are few prettier lands or more delightful climates. It is very mountainous, but not many very high peaks. All the way from the port at Limon to San José, the capital, there is grand scenery. Passing along on the train up a steep grade one looks back and wonders how the road-builders ever got up. In some places along on the mountain-sides, as the train passes, you can pick ferns out of one window and out of the other can see the valley far below, with little houses that look as if built for dolls. In some of these places it is very dangerous, and the train has to go very slowly. Arriving in San José and just leaving the station you can see the city lying below you. A little to the left, and at about the middle, you can see the large round dome of the cathedral, and a little way back the large red roof of the new theatre. To the right lie the new school building and the Plaza de Toros. Entering more into the city one is surprised and pleased at the numerous pretty parks that are scattered all through it. San José is called the "Little Paris," as here you can see the Spanish beauties dressed in the latest Parisian styles. Sunday afternoon is the time when the señoritas take a promenade in the Parque Central, where the music is playing and all is gay.