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ern Ohio. The chief, who is a poet, said he looked like Nelson; a Nelson from the shores of the Miami seemed a funny notion; but he did nevertheless. I was expecting nothing and thinking of nothing when the launch reached a hole in the side of the black object we had seen in the offing. We ran up the steps to the deck, which had been hidden from us by the ship's high walls and which was alive with a numerous company drawn up in the smartest array; the admiral to the front, an extremely handsome old man, in uniform of navy blue and brass buttons and white waistcoat, looking very grand and clean and bright and "tarnation mad.” (We should have been there before). There was a violent discharge of musketry. My senses were shocked by the sharp rattling reports. The deck swam blushing with ten thousand flowers. In the twinkling of an eye I had been taken, after long absence, to a portion of the territory of my own country. It was her music, from the guns of four hundred thronging brothers, which tore the morning air of that distant shore. It was her most sweet thunder which reverberated among those summer seas. I looked upward and beheld the flag floating supremely in its elemental blue.

I never dreamed they could make such a devil of a noise. The ship's company went through their manoeuvres; and then we were shown over the vessel. There was something rather flattering to ourselves, who had been treated with such consideration in the "damnyour-eyes" manner in which the officers hissed their orders sidewise to the common sailors, while we, so to speak, strode on superbly over their prostrate necks. It seemed very professional and quite the right thing. The admiral asked us to dine with him in his cabin. He also asked the captain. It was particularly pleasant to see that the captain called him "Sir," similar instances of just authority and decent subordination being so rare among our countrymen. At dinner the admiral had several times told the colored boy who waited to fill my glass, which the boy was rather slow in doing. At length the admiral himself filled the glass, saying: "That boy is determined you shan't have anything to drink." The moderation and self-restraint of this impressed me greatly, when I knew that at a word he could have hanged the boy from the yard-arms.

The ship's company were again drawn up to take leave of the minister, who declared to the admiral when about to take the launch that it was the happiest day he had spent in England. As for me, I shall not attempt to describe the lively sentiments toward the grand old admiral I entertained at parting.

... I see by the papers that they have taken up the remains of John Howard Payne, the author of "Home, Sweet Home," and carried them to America, the expense of the proceeding having been borne by an American millionaire. Mr. Payne had a very nice grave by the side of the Mediterranean. Why not have let him stay there? To have taken him up after so long a time and to have carried him such a distance and then for a Washington glee-club to get around him and sing a partsong seems to me to have been of the nature of an indignity. If Mr. Payne was a man of humor and refined sensibilities, as he probably was, I doubt if such a free treatment of him would have been to his taste.

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There is a notion at home that you may be allowed to do anything, if you will pay for it. And when a rich man wants to do something graceful," it is difficult for the authorities to gainsay him, a rich man with us being a bigger thing than the Government of the United States. I trust that if any soft-hearted millionaire proposes to make a contribution to my traveling expenses, he will do so while I am in the flesh, and can come to such a nice place as this and spend it. It seems also that the Department of State made a somewhat unseasonable concession in this matter. There must have been occasions when a leave of absence of sixty days and the necessary time required for transit, with permission to visit the United States, would have been appreciated by Mr. Payne. But to speak seriously, of course if there were people who wished to move Mr. Payne and were ready to pay for the transfer, the government could hardly have refused to assist them to do so. A great department can hardly humor itself with the whims of taste in which an irresponsible itinerant like the writer may indulge himself.

My countrymen have recently displayed a great access of necrologic zeal. Some Philadelphians have made a determined effort to get possession of the body of William Penn, and as they are that sort of people who think there isn't anything you can't raise with a derrick, they are much surprised that their attempt should have been resisted. On the ground that Pittsburg was named after the elder Pitt, the Common Council of that city recently passed a resolution, requesting Lord Chatham to allow the remains of his ancestor to be removed there for interment. The great Lord Chatham said, "If I were an American, I would never lay down my arms!" By way of a tardy acknowledgement of this famous and magnanimous utterance, I now take this opportunity of saying, "If I were the Pitt family, I would never give up my grandfather!"

E. S. Nadal.

THE HUNDREDTH MAN.*

BY FRANK R. STOCKTON,

Author of "Rudder Grange," "The Lady, or the Tiger ?" "The Late Mrs. Null," "The Casting Away of Mrs. Lecks and Mrs. Aleshine," etc.

XVII.

R. STULL did not go into the country with his family, for it was necessary for him to remain some time longer in the city, in order to give attention to several branches of his varied business which had been neglected when his mind and time had been so greatly occupied by the disturbances at Vatoldi's. But this occasioned no delay in the opening of his operations against the peace and welfare of Enoch Bullripple. He had no intention of doing anything in his proper person, and his presence was not at all necessary at the scene of action. Without allowing his motives to make any appearance whatever, he had engaged a competent agent to investigate the title-deeds and original surveys of the Bullripple farm; and he had found, as he had expected to find, that not only was the old man's tenure of his property a very uncertain one, having depended for its endurance principally upon the fact that no one had ever cared to investigate its validity, but that there was an equal doubt of legal ownership in regard to the farm which he himself had acquired from Mrs. People. Mr. Stull had reason to suspect this when he bought up the mortgages which eventually gave him possession of the farm, but the property came to him so easily he was willing to take the risks in regard to the title. Now it would serve his purpose very well, if, when the time came to push Enoch Bullripple to the wall, the old man could also see that Mr. Stull was being pushed. That would make it impossible for Enoch or his nephew to suppose that he had anything to do with the matter.

But Mr. Stull was an excellent manager and a shrewd business man, and he did not propose that the pushing he might receive should hurt him in the least. His present action was not entirely based on his desire to retaliate on the old farmer for the insults and injuries the latter had heaped upon him. If things should turn out as he expected, there was reason to hope that Copyright, 1886, by Frank R.

*

there would be much profit for him in his proposed transactions. The lands in question were not worth very much, looked upon from an agricultural point of view, but it was possible that they might, otherwise, be very valuable. Iron ore in paying quantities had been found in various parts of this region; and Mr. Stull's observations had led him to believe that the rolling country about Cherry Bridge was as likely to contain iron as any of the places where it had already been found. It would please him very well to form a company and put up a smelting-furnace on some spot convenient to the railroad; but, before he did this, he would like to become the owner of as much valuable mineral land in the vicinity as he could lay his hand upon. If there should be iron on his own farm, he would be very willing to give up his present hold upon it in order to acquire another which would be firm and secure; and if the Bullripple property should contain the desirable metal, he would most certainly buy up that property if it should be forced into the market.

The agent selected to conduct these investigations was exceedingly well adapted to the work; and, had he not undertaken it, it is doubtful if Mr. Stull could have found any one to whom he would have been willing to intrust it. This individual was Mr. Zenas Turby, who lived in the county town not far from Cherry Bridge, where he engaged in a variety of vocations, most of which had some connection with the law. He collected debts, and took up any odds or ends of legal business which could be attended to by one who was not an actual lawyer. In the course of a long and intrusive life he had picked up a great deal of information, legal and otherwise, which frequently caused him to shine in the light of a useful man. There was one piece of business which most of his neighbors would have been very glad to see him engaged in, and that was an early attendance at his own funeral. But Mr. Turby had declined for many years to gratify this popular desire, and, although now over sixty, was so hale and hearty that the prevailing hope in his direction seemed likely to be much deferred.

Among his other accomplishments Mr. Stockton. All rights reserved.

Turby was skilled in the search for iron ore, and this helped in a great degree to make him unpopular. The farmers in this part of the country had no desire to profit by the discovery of ore on their property. The profit they received from the culture of the surface of their fields was as satisfactory to them as it. had been to their fathers, and they did not wish to dig and blast into the bowels of their farms in the pursuit of what might or might not be concealed therein. There were a few who had been shown the errors of this conservatism, but the greater part of them still asserted that they wanted nobody prowling and prying around their farms looking for iron. Even if it should be found, there was at present no furnace in the neighborhood, and, consequently, no immediate demand for the ore; and, more than that, they were unable to rid their minds of their old-fashioned prejudices against allowing other men to come and work upon their lands.

Mr. Turby was very well pleased to take up this piece of business for Mr. Stull. There was gain in it, and, besides, all the fighting that would have to be done would be against Enoch Bullripple, and Turby liked that. For many years, and in various ways, these two had been pitted against each other, whenever occasion could be found for such pitting. Whatever one believed in politics, religion, or in regard to almost anything else, was doubted or denied by the other, and the fact that they were the two sharpest old fellows in that county was reason enough for their being very sharp against each other.

Hitherto Enoch had generally got the better of Zenas Turby, and the latter, therefore, was very zealous in an affair which might give him the upper hand and a very hard and horny upper hand-of a man who had not failed to get him down whenever it had been possible.

The investigations regarding the title-deeds and surveys of the estates in question had been carried on at the county town, and Mr. Turby having made a satisfactory report upon these, it now remained to look into the iron branch of the business before Mr. Stull definitely determined how he would proceed in the affair. This made it necessary for Zenas Turby to visit the village of Cherry Bridge; and to Cherry Bridge he came.

It was on a rainy morning that Mr. Bullripple, mounted on a great gray horse which would have been plowing in the corn-field had the weather been fair, rode up to the village house of entertainment, and tied his horse under a shed. There were several men sitting in a large covered porch in front of the house, but the first person Enoch saw was Zenas

Turby. It cannot be said that in the mind of either of these men there ever arose a desire for social converse with the other, and yet, whenever they happened to meet, each experienced certain snappy emotions which were not unpleasurable.

"You here, Zenas Turby?" said Enoch, as he took his seat in the one vacant wooden armchair. "Haven't seen you in Cherry Bridge for a good while. I thought, perhaps, that sulky of yourn had broke down at last from your havin' forgot yourself and taken somebody in with you."

As he said this Mr. Bullripple smiled, and looked around at the other men sitting in wooden arm-chairs, most of whom being his neighbors returned him an answering grimace of approbation of the little thrust he had given Zenas Turby.

The latter did not smile. He was a strong, heavily built man. His face was smoothshaven, and the little hair he had on his head was curly and of a reddish, sandy hue which made it difficult to perceive whether it was turning gray or not. He wore a long black coat, and the rest of his clothes and his hat were black, and he. carried a stout cane with a long curved handle, well polished by the use of many years. He did not need this cane, but always took it with him when he drove. On such occasions he used it as a prodder with which to remind his horse that time is money; and when walking he carried it as a symbol of authority and a punctuator of his remarks. Now he gave a tap upon the floor which might indicate the opening of a paragraph, and fixing his sharp blue eyes upon his old antagonist, he said: "It's all very well for you, Enoch Bullripple, to keep on talking about my sulky, for I expect there's been many a time when you've wished it held two instead of one, so that you might get a chance of using some other person's horse-flesh instead of your own, but I've lived long enough to know it's a sight better for a man that's got business to attend to to drive about in somethin' that'll hold himself and nobody else; so that wherever he goes he won't be asked to give somebody a lift who's too lazy to walk, or too stingy to keep a horse. My sulky carries me about all right, but it won't carry nobody else, and this suits me very well, even if it does sometimes come hard on you, Enoch Bullripple." And the big cane came down on the floor, marking a period apparently very satisfactory to the speaker.

Mr. Bullripple grinned. "There's no man in this county," said he, "outside of a lunatic asylum that would see you driving by with an empty four-seated wagon and ask for a lift in it if he didn't have enough money in his pocket to pay you a little more than common stage

fare. And I shouldn't wonder if the reason you stick to a sulky is to keep yourself from the temptation of stagin' without a license." At this two or three of the company laughed, and Mr. Turby frowned. But Enoch, not caring for any reply to this remark, continued to speak.

"But what brought you up here any way, Zenas?" he said. ""Tain't the time of year for collectin' bills. Did you come to look for iron? I've heard you've been goin' into that business."

Now nothing could have angered Mr. Turby more than this remark. Sneers in regard to his narrowness of disposition were not new to him, but he flattered himself that he always succeeded in keeping his business a secret until he chose to divulge it. But here, at the very first question, Enoch had hit upon the object of his visit to Cherry Bridge.

"Whether it's iron or gold or paper money, it's none of your business, Enoch Bullripple. That is to say" but here he checked him self. He wished to make it very much the business of the other, but that was a matter which must not now be touched upon. "All that I've got to say about iron is just this: that there never was a bigger fool than the man who'd go on plowin' and workin' his stony old fields and not get enough in any year to pay his honest debts, when all he has to do is to say the word and have a company dig iron out of his hills—and not hurt his fields and pastures nuther and pay him fifty cents for every load of ore took out. But there are fools of that kind and plenty of 'em, who might live in comfort and send their children to school if they only had sense enough to let other people come and get out of their farms the only thing worth gettin' out of 'em."

"It's one thing," said Enoch, " to own land with minerals in it and to go to work and get them minerals and make money on 'em. But it's altogether another thing to have a man come that p'raps don't know no more about it than that p'inter dog, and dig here, there, and anywhere, on your farm, and then go off and say that there ain't iron enough on it to make a horse-shoe, and so spile your chance of sellin' a part of your land if a company ever did come along that wanted to buy it. Nobody wants a fellow huntin' for iron on his place who's got a report to sell to the highest bidder."

This was a hard hit, because a story had once been told that a farmer in the neighborhood of the county town had been urged by Mr. Turby to employ him to make a report on the mineral value of his lands, offering as a reason that it would be much better for the owner of a farm if the investigating agent had his in

terests at heart instead of those of the wouldbe purchaser. As the country people of that region had an old-fashioned idea that a report should be a simple statement of facts without reference to the interests of any particular em'ployer, this story thickened the cloud that for a long time had shaded Mr. Turby.

Zenas frowned and looked steadily at the floor. "I shouldn't think," said he, speaking slowly but very forcibly, " that a man that goes off on some sort of a shindy in the very busiest part of the year and leaves his farm to take care of itself and go to rack and ruin fur all he knows, ought to have anythin' to say about what industrious fore-handed people choose to do with their lands."

"A part of what you say, Zenas Turby,” answered Mr. Bullripple, "is exactly right, and that is that you shouldn't think. Thinkin' is a business that you ain't suited for. There's a good many kinds of work that you can do first-rate, but you ought to get somebody else to do your thinkin'. You was just right when you said you shouldn't think."

At this there was a burst of laughter from the men in wooden arm-chairs; and Mr. Turby rose to his feet to make an angry reply. But he was not so quick of speech as was Enoch, and the moment the laughter ceased the latter, also rising, got in ahead of his antagonist, and remarked: "I haven't got no time to stay here any longer palaverin' about iron lands. But I'll just say this, Zenas Turby, that it's a mighty good thing when a farmer gets his place in such a condition that when he wants to go away for a while to attend to some other business, it can run itself."

XVIII.

MISS MATILDA STULL was very well aware that in her endeavor to get into the Cherry Bridge society she need not depend in the least on her mother. That lady was too glad to get away from the irksome and often embarrassing social demands of the city to wish now for society of any kind. Usually spending the summer at some fashionable wateringplace, the quiet of this mountain farm-house gave her a sense of delightful repose she had not known for years, and she was entirely satisfied with the protracted absence of her husband, who, if he had been upon the scene, would most probably have insisted, as he always insisted elsewhere, that she should push to the front of whatever society she might find about her and make herself clearly visible as the wife of J. Weatherby Stull.

But the eldest daughter of the house felt that she was quite able to further her own interests in this matter, and, with this view,

she set out on a walk to see Mrs. People. When her father should return she knew that she would be obliged to take the horses and the carriage when she wanted to go about the country, but now it suited her purpose much better to walk. It was easier to meet people, and perhaps to stop and talk with them, when walking than in driving in the carriage. She looked upon Mrs. People as the only present thread of connection between herself and the Cherry Bridge gentry, and it was her intention to make that good woman understand that it was her duty to impress upon the mind of Mrs. Justin the importance of an early call upon the ladies of the Stull family, people of high position who had recently arrived in the neighborhood. She did not attempt to deceive herself with the notion that anxiety to make the acquaintance of Mrs. Justin was at the bottom of her intended action, but she freely admitted to her own consciousness that through that lady the acquaintance of gentlemen, often a most necessary adjunct in the enjoyment of country life, would probably be made.

She was yet some little distance from the Bullripple house, when she met John People, who was coming towards her on the narrow path through the grass at the side of the road. John was in his shirt-sleeves. He wore a broad straw hat, and on his shoulder he carried a hay-rake. His portly and upright figure appeared so well in this rural guise that Miss Stull could not help wishing for a moment that he were a gentleman disporting himself thus for his own pleasure, instead of being the son of that fat Mrs. People, taking a holiday from his restaurant, and working on the farm. Had she expected no other opportunities of male society during her country sojourn, Miss Matilda would have been willing to ramble over the woods and fields with the sturdy John; but, as she had a lively hope of doing something better in this line, she now looked upon him only in the light of a possible steppingstone to some advantageous foothold.

"Good-morning, Mr. People," she said; "isn't this a beautiful day?"

John returned the salutation, and, taking off his hat, exposed to view his short yellow locks, as smoothly and evenly brushed as Miss Stull had ever seen them at Vatoldi's.

"Are you going to work in the fields?" she said presently, as the two stopped.

"I was going," said John, with an emphasis upon the "was " intending to indicate that such should not be his present purpose if Miss Matilda gave him an opportunity of remaining in her society.

Miss Matilda understood the intonation perfectly, and she hesitated for a moment beVOL. XXXIV. — 5.

fore she spoke. If the mother should happen to be away it might be a good thing to take a walk with the son, and if she could derive no other advantage from the ramble she felt she could obtain from John some additional information in regard to the persons whose acquaintance she desired.

"Is Mrs. People at home?" she said, "and disengaged?"

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'Oh, yes," said John, "and she will be very glad to see you. There's a lady in the house now, but I don't think she intends to stay very long."

"Who is it?" asked Miss Stull quickly. "It is Miss Armatt, the young lady who is staying with Mrs. Justin."

"Oh, indeed!" said Miss Matilda. "I think I'll go in and make a little call on your mother. Good-morning."

John stepped aside to let her pass, and over his face there came a shadow of disappointment. He did not know exactly what he had expected, but, whatever it might have been, he was not going to get it, and he could not prevent the shadow.

"Won't you walk with me as far as the gate?" asked Miss Matilda with a smile. "I don't always understand the opening of these big gates."

She was not a workman who dropped her chisel and her saw into the dust and chips whenever she did not happen to be using them.

When, with another smile, she parted from John at the gate, she stepped very quickly towards the house. Miss Armatt's presence there was a rare piece of good fortune, and she was very anxious to arrive before that lady left.

Gay had walked over, across the fields, on an errand for Mrs. Justin, who was very glad to give her young friend an object for her morning walk, and thereby secure for herself the uninterrupted company of Mr. Stratford, who had come, by appointment, to assist her in the auditing of some complicated accounts of the association of which they both were members.

Mrs. People was about half through one of her long statements of facts when Miss Stull appeared, and she and Miss Armatt were made acquainted.

The visit of the two young ladies proved to be quite a long one, for Mrs. People was very anxious to talk. Miss Gay did not wish to leave until she had fully attended to her errand, and Miss Matilda did her best to make herself agreeable without regard to the passage of time. When, at last, Gay said that she positively must go, and her business had been promptly brought to a conclusion, Miss Stull discovered that she would not be going out of her way if she should walk over a field or

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