"What do you pay now?" asked Willie. "Ten dollars a month." "Could you make it twelve?" "Call it fifty," said Sam, lighting a black cigar, "at ninety days, and open the beer, Willie, and it's a deal." "Don't talk nonsense," said Bob. "I say, Willie, you may raise the rent to twenty dollars if you like, and run and tell your father, if it will do him any good." "Oh, thank you," cried Willie, and he ran home with a light heart, singing merrily. When he got home he found Mr. Flint sinking fast and muttering something about giving his wife a ten-dollar bill. "He is out of his head," said Mrs. Flint, bursting into tears. Willie ran to the bed and whispered to his father's ear: "Papa, I have raised the rent of one of your offices from ten to twenty dollars." "You, my child!" said his father, laying his hand on Willie's head. "God bless my brave little boy." Mr. Flint sank into a peaceful slumber and his fever left him. The next day he was able to sit up, and feeling much stronger, when Willie told him whose rent it was he had raised. Mr. Flint then fell dead. Alas! messieurs, life is full of disappointments! (_Houston Daily Post_, Sunday morning, May 3, 1896.) The Mirage on the Frio The sheep man rejected the offer of a match, and lit his pipe from a burning brand. We were down on Buffalo Bayou fishing, and had cooked and eaten supper. Fried fresh fish, coffee, corn bread, potatoes, and just enough crisp bacon to flavor gave us a supper at which none murmured. We reclined at ease and worshipped the goddess Nicotine. The moon made a glory in the eastern sky and spread a white shimmering glamour upon the black water of the bayou. A phantom tug crept down stream, leaving a ghostly, wavering silver wake, and a mysterious lapping and washing along the unseen shores. Mosquitoes hummed angrily about the borders of the hanging cloud of tobacco smoke. A dank fresh smell arose from bursting buds and wild flowers. We five sat in the chiaroscuro of the live oaks and cypresses, and babbled as most men and all women will when Night, the tongue loosener, succeeds the discrete Day. Night should be held responsible for poets, breach of promise suits, betrayed secrets and dull stories. The man who will not tell more than he knows in the moonlight of a spring night is a rarity. Four of us were more or less hardened to moonlight and roses; one among us was young enough to note the soft effect of Luna's kiss upon the dim tree tops, the aerial perspective of the drifting gulf clouds, and the dim white eyes of the dogwood blossoms peering out of the wooded darkness. He noted and spake his thoughts without stint of adjectives, while we world-worn passengers grunted in reply; puffed at our cigars and pipes, and refused to commit ourselves on such trifling matters. "Isn't it beautiful?" asked the young man. "The sky like the derne of some dream temple, the woods dark with mystery and the silence broken only by the faint breathing of nature."