It is woman's firm ambition to attain a high position, and he surely is a caitiff who regrets to see her rise; I for one will hand her praises, load her down with cheering phrases, if, in seeking higher levels, she does not neglect the pies. Let her study art and science, read up Blackstone and his clients, soak herself in Kant or Browning and the truth that in them lies; she may dote on Keats or Ruddy--if she doesn't cease to study worthy books and able pamphlets treating of uplifting pies. Now and then my spirit, shrinking, gets to doubting, brooding, thinking that the pies we have at present are not like the pies of yore; modern dames are good at making crusts for pies, and good at baking, but they buy the stuff to fill them at the nearest grocer's store. Are our pies as good as ever? Do our modern dames endeavor to produce the pie triumphant, pies that make us better men? If they do, then who would chide them, who would blame them or deride them, if they turn from pies and cookies to their Ibsen books again? [Illustration: "_I saw the form of a cringing bum all crumpled and soaked with gin._"] _The Magic Mirror_ I went one night with my high-priced thirst to loaf in the booze bazar, and as I sampled the old red dope I leaned on the handsome bar. My purse was full of the good long green, and my raiment was smooth and new, and I looked as slick as a cabbage rose that's kissed by the nice wet dew. Behind the bottles a mirror stood, as large as your parlor floor, and I looked and looked in the shining glass, and wondered, and looked some more. My own reflection did not appear, but there where it should have been, I saw the form of a cringing bum all crumpled and soaked with gin. His nose was red and his eyes were dim, unshorn was his swollen face, and I thought it queer such a seedy bo would come to so smooth a place. I turned around for a better look at this effigy of despair, and nearly fell in a little heap, for the effigy wasn't there! The barkeep laughed. "It's the Magic Glass," he said, with a careless yawn; "it shows a man how he's apt to look years hence when his roll is gone!" _The Misfit Face_ A certain man, who lived some place, was gifted with a misfit face; when Nature built his mug she broke all rules and tried to play a joke; of pale red hair he had a thatch, his eyes were green and didn't match; his nose was pug, his chin was weak, and freckles grew on either cheek, and sorrel whiskers fringed his chop, too thin to ever make a crop. And people, when they first beheld his countenance, just stopped and yelled. But when they'd known him for a while, and marked his glad and genial smile; when passing time had made them wise to all the kindness in those eyes; and when they found that from his face there came no sayings mean or base, that misfit mug they'd often scan, and cry: "He is a handsome man!" _A Dog Story_