Carlin ceased speaking, and the silence which prevailed in the Club for a moment was broken by Miller, who said: "Don't worry about them, Carlin. If they do fail they have lots of fun in trying." "I would grave more for your mon Joe," interposed Corrigan, "did I not remember Mrs. Dougherty, who married the gintleman of properthy, and thin your Joe war a fraud onyway. What war there in a bit of a scrap to make a mon grave himself into craziness over it?" "Your stock-buying illustration is not fair, Carlin, for that is only a form of gambling at best," suggested Brewster. The club winced under this a little, for every member dabbled in stocks sometimes, except Brewster and Harding. For two evenings Harding had been scribbling away behind the table, and during a lull in the conversation Ashley asked him what he had been writing. "Letters?" suggested Ashley. "No, not letters," answered Harding, sententiously. "What is it, then," asked Miller; "won't you read it to us?" "Yes, rade it, rade it," said Corrigan, and the rest all joined in the request. "You won't laugh?" said Harding, inquiringly. They all promised, and Harding read as follows: THE PROSPECTOR. How strangely to-night my memory flings From the face of the past its shadowy wings, And I see far back through the mist and tears Which make the record of twenty years; From the beautiful days in the Golden State, When life seemed sure by long leases from Fate; From the wondrous visions of "long ago" To the naked shade that we call "now." Those halcyon days! There were four with me then-- Ernest and Ned, Wild Tom and Ben. Now all are gone; Tom was first to die. I held his hands, closed his glazed eye; And many a tear o'er his grave we shed As we tenderly pillowed his curly head In the shadows deep of the pines, that stand Forever solemn, forever fanned By the winds that steal through the Golden Gate And spread their balm o'er the Golden State. And the others, too, they all are dead. By the turbid Gila perished Ned; Brave, noble Ernest, he was lost Amid Montana's ice and frost; And out upon a desert trail Our Bennie met the spectre pale. And I am left--the last of all-- And as to-night the white snows fall, As barbarous winds around me roar, I think the long past o'er and o'er-- What I have hoped and suffered, all, From twenty years rolls back the pall, From the dusty, thorny, weary track, As the tortuous path I follow back. In my childhood's home they think me, there, A failure, or lost, till my name in the prayer At eve is forgot. Well, they cannot know That my toil through heat, through tempest and snow, While it seemed for naught but a struggle for pelf, Was more for them, far more, than myself.