'A handbag,' she smiled; 'one with the fittings, you know.' A handbag. Ah, now I had got in it! I could n't tell her—well, I simply must be with the company. A silence, as though I were trying to provide the best handbag and the finest fittings possible.

'We have some on the second floor,' I said, 'and, if I remember rightly, one or two on the third floor. However, the best ones possibly can be found on floor four. If I were you But she had noticed the newspaper in my pocket, and had retreated in terror.

I started to meander on, hoping I might run across the silks if I pretended I did n't care whether I found them or not. I passed books and I passed toilet articles very successfully, but just as I reached the hosiery I was accosted again.

'Miss McMaster has fainted, sir! She's back there! What shall we do?' Two little girls in black were tugging at my arms, wide-eyed.

'I'm sure I - you say she's fainted?' I thought of several things for Miss McMaster, including smelling salts and the fire department. But this was getting to be serious. "Tell that gentleman over there,' I said, pointing to a floorwalker and leaving the scene hurriedly. 'Have you any blue with a flower on it?'

The elderly saleswoman smiled at me as though she had been waiting all day for someone to ask for just that.

'We have six or eight blue patterns with flowers,' she replied.

'Well, then, I don't want that. Have you any blue with a little house on it?'

This was another matter. 'I'll look,' she conceded. Perhaps after all — but there was n't any. I went over the scene with Doris again. I was sure I had the right store.

'Well,' I said as a last resort, 'do you remember selling any blue to a young lady a few days ago with a flower on I mean on the blue? Sort of slender and pretty - I mean the lady?'

'Let me see. Did she want it for draperies?'

'Well, now, I really could n't say.' The good woman The good woman was getting unreasonable, I thought. I had already given her enough information.

'I do remember the material, I believe,' she said. 'Was it this?'

It did have a flower, although it seemed to me a little more of the hothouse variety than Doris's.

'I believe that's it,' I said. I wanted to get it over with. 'I'll take let me see, did she want five or seven yards?' I looked at the saleslady again, as one old friend seeks the help of another. 'Well, I'll take six, anyhow.'

'Oh, I'm so sorry, dear,' Doris said, when I had got home. 'You'll have to go back. You see, I measured wrong, and I'm afraid six will be needed. I told you four, did n't I?'

'Yes,' I said, grasping my opportunity immediately, but I felt sure it would n't be enough, so I got six.' That was something, at least. She looked at me wonderingly.

'Now, is this right?' Trembling, I revealed my purchase.

'Yes, that's it,' she said. 'But look - there's your hat and the sample, on the hall table. How did you ever get it without the sample?'

'Oh, I remembered, after I had seen it,' I said, calmly.

'It's the motion of the motor car,' their grandmother had said one morning when Jack, my namesake, was particularly 'bouncy.' 'His parents have been dashing around in a car from the day they met until this moment, allowing only three weeks off when she had to keep still in the hospital to welcome the child.'

All the time my wife was speaking, the baby had been moving up and down as though he had folding legs, and I kept murmuring 'Hey! diddle, diddle, the cat and the fiddle,' as that was the only tune as lively as his movements. 'The cow jumped over the moon,' I continued. And the little dog laughed see such sport 'The baby gurgled with glee. 'And the dish ran away with the spoon.'

to

I brought him down, with a determined desire to have him keep still for just one moment. But it was no use, and now I sit here evenings by the fire, revising the lines of the old lady who made them.

'Hey! divver, divver, the child and the flivver, The car raced under the moon,

And the little lad laughed to feel such speed, While Grandpa passed out in a swoon.'

'Go on,' said Jack's grandmother; then, 'No, you wait a minute, I have one,' and she recited:

"There was a young woman who had a new car

"That's the antithesis to the old woman who lived in a shoe,' she explained gratuitously, 'and is Marybelle.' Marybelle is our daughter.

'And also one infant, so they, with his Pa—'

"That's an ugly word,' I now interrupted, 'a hideous, distorted use of the good word "father," much worse than my "divver" for "diddle." But my my wife went right on:

"There was a young woman who had a new car, And also one infant, so they, with his Pa, Took thermos and basket with butter and bread, Locked up their home tightly, and outward they sped.'

"That's fair,' said I.

'Rock-a-bye, baby-'

"There are no more treetops for the babies,' I interrupted, 'unless the car lands in one.'

"That does n't matter in the least.' My wife tossed that thought away with utter contempt, because

'Rock-a-bye, baby,

In a Ford car,

When the brakes jam,

The baby will jar.

attempt.

"That's a hideous and distorted word,' said my wife.

'Never mind,' said I, 'they live a hideous and distorted life, and anyway, even if they don't, it rhymes.' I calmly proceeded:

Goose. Try "Little Miss Muffet."
After a while I produced this:-

'Little Miss Muffet sat on a tuffet,
Feeding her car the gas,
There came a rude copper,
And he tried to stop her-
His widow's now suing the lass.'

"That's rather bloodcurdling,' said Miss Muffet's grandmother. 'Now here's mine, about your favorite grandchild and namesake:

'Little Jack Horner sat in a corner,
Watching the scenery fly.

He wiggled his thumb at the end of his nose
When a motor-cyc cop came by.'

'Well!' I cried heartily, 'I am rather proud of him for that. But not surprised. He comes of a long line of courageous ancestors on both sides, my dear.' I arose, bowed, kissed her hand, and so to bed, mumbling something about 'Sing a song of cylinders, engine full of gas.'

WATCH YOUR STEP

MUCH has been written and more has been said about the duty and responsibility of the automobile driver, and no doubt there still exists urgent need for continuance of this propaganda for years to come. But into this concert of condemnation of drivers in general I should like to introduce a little roundelay, the theme of which is the duty and responsibility of the pedestrian! And I am certain that, given the note, every autoist will join me feelingly in the chorus.

I have driven a car for years cautiously and I think I may say modestly well; and in those years the number of people who have seemed determined to commit suicide beneath my wheels has increased alarmingly. Now I cannot say that I love my fellow man indiscriminately, but I wholesomely respect his right to life, limb, and pursuit of happiness. So I have resignedly dodged these would-be suicides with a glow of satisfaction at my dexterity and a sigh for their frustrated hopes.

However, with the speeding up through the years of the pace of traffic

and the increase of numbers of vehicles on the road, the time has arrived when the driver of a car can no longer be the genial guardian of the entire public; and, though he may earnestly desire to turn out for the careless pedestrian, city traffic has so arranged it that there is no direction in which he can turn save one from which the force of gravity restrains him. Nevertheless, the good citizen who sees a pedestrian in a place where he has no right to be or reason for being will always make the attempt to avoid him, even though he jeopardizes his own life and limb in so doing.

And here is the burden of my song. If the pedestrian sets no value on his own life, it is nevertheless his duty and responsibility to allow the man behind the wheel to get home safely.

The woman with the baby carriage who seems to think she has exclusive first rights on all city streets; the saucy flapper who saunters out on a crossing just as a super-snappy traffic officer has told the motorist to 'Go ahead and STEP ON IT'; the youth who leaps across a street between blocks; the nervous lady that flutters out from nowhere to catch a trolley or bus that has just started; the demented scores of people who run around trolley cars during late afternoon rush hours all of these owe their lives to the forbearance and alertness of the motorist who daily risks his life and bank account to save them.

The sidewalk belongs exclusively to the pedestrian, and is it too much to ask that, before he launches himself from his exclusive domain into the territory which he knows he must share with the automobile, he take one little look before he leaps? Countless lives and innumerable dollars would thus be saved and the sanity of many drivers be spared.

I SWEAR

THE scene is the naturalization court. I stand in the doorway amid a motley crowd, and my heart beats high with expectancy. This is the day for which I have waited so long. At last I am to take my part in the duties and privileges of American citizenship. My mind is stirred by a vision of that day of travail one hundred and fifty years ago, when the voice was raised of a newborn child among the nations. I see the long procession of those that have held high the torch, of those for whom 'Rather deathe than false of faythe' has been a natural instinct rather than an act of heroism. Solemnly in the procession moves the noble figure of Lincoln, brooding over the wayward children he must guide. How can I hope to be worthy of following these pioneers?

My dream is shattered by a voicea crude and grating voice which invites me to 'make up your mind and come in or get out.' I come in, holding in my hand a slip of paper with a number on it. Each time a clerk drones out a number, a man pushes forward and stands before the judge. My eyes are riveted on a picture at his back-it is Justice, holding the scales. Gradually I move closer to the judge. The solemn moment is approaching when I shall be weighed in those pitiless scales outlined behind his shoulder. Now I am within earshot as another number is called. A man shuffles to the front, and the examiner, looking absent-mindedly at a pigeon perched on the coping outside, says, 'Who was the first president of the United States?' The man looks bewildered and fingers the brim of his hat. In a voice betraying boredom and irritation, the examiner is forced to

answer the question himself, and then asks, 'Who made him president?' The man is afraid to leave the second question unanswered and replies desperately, 'Columbus.' Before I have recovered from my dazed astonishment another number is called, and the applicant is asked, 'Who is Mr. Dawes?' He does not know, and admits it in accents which are positive, though broken. The examiner seems willing to give each candidate as much assistance as possible. 'Well, who comes next after the first man of the land?' The applicant smiles confidently and answers without hesitation, "The second man of the land.'

I begin to think there must be a mistake somewhere, when I hear a number which my subconscious mind tells me is the number on the paper which trembles in my hand. I move to the front of the tribunal. The examiner is about to formulate some question mechanically, then raises his eyes to look at me and says, 'You may pass on.'

More numbers, more questions, more mumbling and halting replies. O Lincoln! Was it for this you suffered?

At last it is finished. The applicants are herded together in the same casual spirit which has marked the whole ceremony. By countries they are called upon to stand up and renounce allegiance to all foreign potentates and sovereigns, and to swear to uphold the Constitution and laws of the United States.

The court adjourns, and out in the corridor there is a confused jostling of new citizens with their American wit

nesses.

'Come on, Tony,' says a florid man, chewing the stub of a cigar, 'let's go and celebrate. I know where you can get some good liquor - the real stuff!'

SINCE the days of Columbus the young men of Europe have been going West to discover, if possible, the American secret. According to Thomas T. Read, a supervising mining engineer, the secret of our success is the large number of 'invisible slaves' which each United States citizen commands. From 1919 to 1923 Mr. Read was Chief of Information Service, United States Bureau of Mines. A cleric who writes and preaches with keen judgment and prophetic insight,

the Reverend Herbert Parrish is rector of an historic New Jersey church. ¶As the senior partner of a prominent advertising concern it is the duty of Earnest Elmo Calkins to be on the outlook for every change in fashion or invention. Captain Thierry Mallet, a French veteran, now president of Revillon Frères, spends four months each year inspecting the fur-trading stations in the north countree. Apart from her short-story writing, Georgiana Pentlarge has lately divided her interest between painting and what she calls 'stage journalism.' Theodore Morrison finds time from his editorial duties for occasional essays and verse. The letters of Hilda Rose, the first installment of which we printed in the February Atlantic, came to us through the friendly agency of Mrs. Clarence G. White, of California, a correspondent with the little pioneer. Mrs. White sends us the following description of her meeting with Mrs. Rose:

This summer I made occasion when returning from Yellowstone and Glacier parks to meet Hilda Rose.

She and 'Daddy' and the Boy had given up the struggle on the 'stump ranch,' had sold all they could, paid all debts, and were headed for Canada - for the Peace River country, to take up a homestead. Taking Daddy back to die on Canadian soil. Daddy had gone ahead, traveling in the box car with the horses and wagon and household furniture. Mrs. Rose and Boy met me and we had forty minutes in the station at Spokane.

She is all and more than the letters indicate.

Here there is no fever, at this season, but we are in the midst of a bad plague epidemic. We took reports of bubonic plague very calmly at first, having been surrounded by twenty-five cases of pneumonic last winter in the capital. Bubonic is only 90 per cent fatal. Two weeks ago we began to be really frightened, a sensation I had come a long way to meet, and did not enjoy when I met it. We got inoculated, though that has its dangers, too, when the doctors are rushed and careless. We are presumably safe by now, though two inoculated people have died. We are continually exposed because we are doing collecting in the heart of the most congested districts. The natives, being in unusual need, are willing to sell fine old jewelry and ceremonial mats which they would not ordinarily part with. Ralph feels he must get all the jewelry he can, for if it is sold to the Hindu traders it will be melted down as just so much old gold or silver, and the best examples of Arab-Malagasy craft will be lost for all time.

Writer at large, Harvey Wickham has moved his headquarters from Paris to Rome. It was last summer that Ethel Wallace Hawkins made her literary pilgrimage to Shropshire. Alice Brown is one of our most distinguished New England poets. Oswald Couldrey is an English writer and artist, now comfortably at home after a distinguished career in the Indian Civil Service. That men are really less selfless than women is (so thinks a man) a perilous generalization, but in making it N.B. Blankenship (of the other gender) has