Evening Republican, Volume 17, Number 60, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 11 March 1913 — Page 2

The SABLE LORCHA

By HORACE HAZELTINE

SYNOPSIS. _ Robert Cameron, capitalist, consults Philip Clyde, newspaper publisher, recarding anonymous threatening letters he has received. The first promises a sample ®f the writer’s power on a certain day. On that day the head is mysteriously cut from a portrait of Cameron while the latter is In the room. Clyde has a theory that the portrait was mutilated while the room was unoccupied and the head later removed by means of a string, unnoticed by Cameron. Evelyn Grayson, Cameron’s niece, with whom Clyde is In love, finds the head of Cameron’s portrait nailed to a tree, where it was had been used as a target. Clyde pledges Evelyn to secrecy. Clyde learns that a Chinese boy employed by Phllatus Murphy, an artist living nearby, had borrowed a rifle from Camerons’ lodgekeepr. Clyde makes an excuse to call on Murphy and is repulsed. He pretends to be investigating alleged Infractions of the game laws and speaks of finding the bowl of an opium pipe under the tree where Cameron’s portrait Was found. The Chinese boy is found dead next morning. While visiting Cameron in his dressing room a Nell Gwynne mirror is mysteriously shattered. Cameron becomes seriously ill as a result of the shock. The third letteb appears mysteriously on Cameron’s sick bed. It makes direct threats against the life of Cameron. Clyde tells Cameron the envelope was empty. He tells Evelyn everything and plans to take Cameron on a yachi trip. The yacht picks up a fisherman found drifting helplessly in a boat. He gives the name of Johnson. Cameron disappears from yacht while Clyde's back Is turned. A fruitless search Is made for a motor boat seen bv the eaptaift Just before Cameron disappeared. Johnson is allowed to go after being closely questioned. Evelyn takes the letters to an expert in Chinese literature, who pronounces them of Chinese origin. Clyde seeks assistance from a Chinese fellow college student. Who recommends him to Tip Sing, most prominent Chinaman in New York. The fatter to seek information of Cameron among his countrymen. Among Cameron’s letters Is found one from one Addison, who speaks of seeing Cameron In Pekin. Cameron had frequently declared to Clvde that he had never been In China. Clyde calls on Dr. Addleon. He Icarus that Addison and Cameron were at one time intimate friends, but had a falltrig out over Cameron's denial of having been seen in Pekin by Addison. Clyde goes to meet Tup Sing, sees Johnson, attempts to follow him, falls into a basement. sprains his ankle and becomes un- — conscious. *

CHAPTER XV. Amyl Pearls. Who -will deny that a sturdy physique Is a valuable asset? Had it not .been for a deep chest, a powerful pair of lungs, a heart without a flaw, And an underlying vitality sueh afr is possessed by but a small minority in these degenerate times, I must certainly have succumbed. For, as I learned later, I had inhaled enough carbon monoxide-gas to have killed the average man of my age, twice x»ver. The stove on which the cauldron of peanuts steamed was a charcoal furnace, and the ttny space within that back room was impregnated with the heavy poisoned fumes to a distance of four feet and more above the floor. Sitting on a low stool, bent forward over my sprained ankle, which for relief I had raised and rested across my other knee, I had come in contact with the deadly gas, breathing It without suspicion, until drowsiness Intervened and stupor*- insensibility, and eventually coma followed.

It is customary, I understand, to employ rigorous treatment in such cases to effect resuscitation. If I am to believe what I have been told of my condition when discovered, I was very far oh the way to dissolution. I was, in fact, moribund, and in the eyes of those who carried me from the cellar to an upper room I was already dead. It is perhaps needless to add that no steps were taken to revive me. Even had 1 been regarded as still liviug I doubt that I should have received any other treatment. Providence, however, favored me. I was thrown Into a bunk under one of the few open windows of Chinatown, and a door left ajar, by accident, probably, drew across me a current of comparatively pure oxygen. Thus invited, nature reasserted itself, and respiration, which had been temporarily suspended, gradually resumed its office. With dawning consciousness came scute discomfort. My head and back ached nigh unbearably, and my ankle, swollen to twloe its normal size, shot pains to my thigh. My tongue seemed too large for my mouth and my throat was raw. Later, memory started a train of questions and surmises. A half light admitted through the open window gave unsatisfactory answer as to time and place. It might be dawn, midday or evening. I might still be in the same building into the basement of which 1 had plunged after the socalled Peter Johnson, or I might be miles away. Yet of one fact I was , assured. It was no longer night. Day ' had come again and eight hours at least must have passed since I stood killing time on the sidewalk in front of the restaurant in which I was to have met Yup Bing. And, as my mind cleared, there rushed in upon me s recollection of Evelyn’s apprehension and of my promise to reassure her not later than eleven o’clock. Suffering aa I was, physically, I know my mental distress at thought of bow she must have waited with growing solicitude hour .•Iter hour for that expected ringing of i the telephone bell; how, indeed, she must, even now, be distraught, not by uncertainty, but by the conviction that some lU r -#ome serious ill—had befalVan me. Was more poignant.

In my eagerness to relieve at once this unrest which I knew to be hers I would have risen, but my strength was not equal to the test. My muscles refused-to obey my will and I lay supine, Inert, powerless. 1 ’would have learned the time, but to seek my watch, which I fondly fancied was still In my pocket, seemed such an enormous exertion that I reluctantly gave over the idea. To breathe, to draw air Into my lungs and expel it, was prodigious labor, wearying me, it appeared, to exhaustion; though with every inhalation lucidity of thought and, I suppose, physical force as well, were being imperceptibly augmented. After a time I fojind myßelf listening intently, for sounds that might prove informatory, while with head slightly turned I made scrupulous inventory of the room In which I was cribbed. It was a cramped, confined place, unplastered, and furnished with four rough board bunks, one of which I occupied. The other three were empty; but in the scant passageway between my resting plaoe and that opposite was a stool, and upon the stool the pipe and other paraphernalia peculiar to opium smoking. Then, very slowly, there came to me a realization of the vulpine cunning of these orientals into whose hands I had fallen. I was to be found here, dead, not from inhalation of foul air In an, ill-ventilated cellar, which might excite suspicion and provoke inquiry, but from over-indulgence In opium, to which I had probably been addicted for years, unknown even to my closest friends. For the. “hop fiend” there is smalL sympathy, no matter what his position, and my family would hesitate, therefore, to prosecute, preferring to avoid unpleasant publicity. Yes; it was very clear they had thought me dead, and bo had left me here unwatched and unattended with the evidence of my mode or passing theatrically displayed beside me. It only remained now for some employe or visitor to discover me and give the alarm. I had about reached this conclusion, 0 after a long and desperately trying effort at logical reasoning, when my straining ears detected the sound of footsteps In the passage. The door of the den was slightly ajar and I lay well in sight of any passer-by who should glance through the narrow opening. Whether to feign death, or boldly make known my recovered consciousness, was for just a moment a question. But before my sluggish brain could decide, choice was snatched from me. The footsteps paused, and simultaneously, it seemed, the door swung farther Inward, disclosing, not the pig-tailed, greasy-bloused Mongolian I had expected, but a white woman, tall and shapely, with hair of Iron gray and the very kindliest eyes that ever I looked Into. I made as If to speak, but my swollen tongue refused to perform its office, and something that may best be described as a gurgle was the result. With that she came to my side, and for a little regarded me silently. I felt that seeing the pipe and the little peanut-oil lamp, she must draw the natural inference, and, though there was no reproach In her look, I wished, If possible, to correct that false Impression. I therefore made effort to gesture denial, employing a glance to indicate the objects and a very feeble side movement of the head to express repudiation. ; It is possible that she understood, but I question that she believed. I

have no recollection that she spoke a single word to me, and yet, when she was gone, I felt that she would Burely return to my rescue. And I was not misled. I suppose this partial relief to my anxiety resulted In a slackening of mental effort on my part, for I must confess that what followed is very vague in my memory. 1 know only that she was accompanied by two men, one white and one yellow, who carried me down a narrow flight of stairs, out onto the street and into a waiting cab. I cannot recall that 1 spoke, but I learned afterward that I had mumbled the word "Loyalton,” and thither she accompanied me. There a physician came, one whom I had never Been before; and I was dosed with aromatic spirits of ammonia and made to breathe oxygen through a funnel, by a white-clad nurse, who also, at Intervals, painted my ankle with lodine, and, whenever I attempted to speak, domineered me In a gentle and perfectly ladylike manner to silenoe. With regard to sending word to Evelyn Grayson, however, I was insistent; and though she had refused absolutely to gratify my curiosity in other respects, she set my blind at rest on this point by informing me that Miss Grayson had called up the Loyalton by telephone several times and had been informed of my condition five minutes after my arrival at my chambers. There were times during the week which followed when I was nigh unto death; and when, finally, after ten days 1 was pronounced convalescent.

CQPY/P/G/fT; 79/Z. A C' Sf?CJLI//?C U CO

it was with the added well-worn phrase that my recovery was “nothing short of a miracle.” It was on the eleventh day that I was first permitted to see and talk with Evelyn. My mother had called daily, sitting in silence beside .my bed, but no other visitor In all that, to me, seemingly endless period, had been admitted to my room. My curiosity was by now very keen to learn what had developed in , the Interval regarding the Cameron mystery. Had he, by chance, been heard from? What had the detective agency reported concerning Philetus Murphy? And what, I wished to know most of all, had Yup Sing discovered? I was In a dressing gown, pillowed and footstooled in a great, leather chair awaiting my visitors—for Mrs. Lancaster came with Evelyn—when their names were announced. I suppose I looked 111 —though, save for a grievous weakness, i~was feeling fit enoughs—for Evelyn’s smile as she en-j tered merged instantly Into an ex 4 pression of mingled anxiety and sympathy. I know that with her coming I awoke to the truth that my desire for information was a far less moving factor than my craving for sight of her and for the music of her vhice, and my only regret was that the understanding between us had not reached the stage of acknowledged betrothal; which, I make baste to add, was certainly no fault of mine. Weak as I was my arms ached to fold her in a reassuring embrace; yet must I content myself with a mere fervent hand-clasp and an oral declaration that 1 was by no means so feeble as I appeared.

Nevertheless I was delighted to see that she gave small evidence of the strain she had been under. Save for a slight additional pallor she was still the same wholesome-looking, thor-oughly-poised girl of a fortnight ago. And my admiration for her took on an added measure because of this renewed evidence of her sterling courage. "And you promised me to be discreet!” she reproached, her smile returning, her hand stflTTn mine. “I did not foresee such provocation to indiscretion,” I pleaded, with an attempted gayety of tone that must have seemed incongruous. “To have been discreet under the circumstances would have involved a repetition of the one mistake for which ybu blamed me. You don’t know, of course, why I Jumped down a ladder into, a pitch-black cellar, do you?” “I know you were in pursuit of some one—a pickpocket, they say, who had taken your watch.” “Do they say that,?” I asked, interested.. “That is what Miss Clement learned.” "Miss Clement?” I queried. “Who is Miss Clement?”. “Oh, I forgot that you don’t know. Miss Clement is the missionary who found you in the —is it ‘hop joint’ they call it?” "The lady with the kind eyes?” At my designation her face brightened responsively. “You remember her, then!” she cried; delightedly. “Hasn’t she kind eyes? And she doesn’t belie them, either. She’s Just the dearest, most self-sacrificing creature I ever knew."

For the moment we had both forgotten Mrs. Lancaster, and when I would have apologized I found that my nurse had carried her off into the next room and was interestedly showing her some framed photographs of the Siena cathedral. “And Miss Clement learned that I pursued a pickpocket?” I went on, when Evelyn had drawn a chair near me and sat down. “A very clever explanation to account for the disappearance of my watch, but not the true one. As a matter of fact, the person I followed a miscreant of a deeper dye. When I last saw him, previous to this encounter, he .was known as Peter Johnson.” Wide-eyed, the girl stared at me for an instant. “Peter Johnson!" she repeated, slowly. “So, I was right. He was in the plot. He had something to do with Uncle Robert’s disappearance. He was the one who broke the amyl pearls on board the yacht.” It was my turn now to start. Of what was this young woman talking? “Amyl pearls!” Was I mad, or was she?

She saw my perplexity, and hastened to enlighten me. "Oh, dear, Philip!” she exclaimed. “I forgot again. There is so much to tell you. Really, I hardly know where to begin. Miss Clement has been of such aid to us! She is what they call an 'independent missionary.’ That is, she has no affiliation with any of the church societies or reform associations. For fifteen years she has been working in Chinatown among the white women, and she knows the place and the people as if she were indeed one of them. I had her out at Cragholt for a day and I've seen her four or five times hejre in town, and I have told her everything, and she baa explained, or at least given quite rear

So liable surmises, concerning many of the Incidents that seemed to us Inexplicable. Did yon ever hear of amyl pearla?" Of course I had heard something of amyl pearls, and I said m. . “They are glass capsules,” I added, "and contain a liquid which smells like bananas. They use them, I believe, in heart attacks, by crushing them In a handkerchief ; and inhaling the drug.” But It was not the same drug, Evelyn explained. Miss Clement had told her all about it. She doubted that it was an amyl, at all, though It was put up In the same fashion, and released in the same way, and it was like an amyl, in that it was extremely volatile. " "Miss Clement has never seen one of them,” Evelyn continued, "but some of the Chinese have told her of them, and of the wonders that they perform. She says the chemical, whatever It Is, Is v/fery expensive and so they are seldom used, but that In China, especially in Secret government enterprises, they are employed on occasion. The effect is seemingly to make invisible the person who uses them. Really, they don’t do anything of,the sort; for they are nothing nflore nor less than capsules, filled with a peculiarly-acting anesthetic — an anesthetic so quick and powerful in Rs action that the victim falls Into insensibility without warning, and emerges, after an interval of ten or twelve minutes, without knowing that he lost consciousness or that more than a single second haß elapsed.” “The idea seems ingenious,” I returned. I wig interested, surely, but. very far from convinoed. “But,” I objected, "how is it that the anaesthetizer is not anaesthetized himself?” “Oh, he doesn’t break the pearls under his own nose,” Evelyn explained. “He casts them. The slightest concussion fractures the shell, and every one within a certain radius drpps instantly Into a temporary trance.” “And the Bwine before whom the pearls are cast, do they drop to the ground to rise again when the ten or twelve ininutes are concluded?” I ridiculed. . _ _ “Oh, not at all. Your muscles are not relaxed. You stand or sit as if turned suddenly to stone. If your arm is extended, for instance, it remains in that position until the effect ceases.” She was very much in earnest, and tried to persuade me that, aided by these pearls, it would be a very easy matter to commit all three of the depredatory acts which had so amazed and shocked us.

I .am the last man to regard anything as impossible in this day of wonders, yet I was by no means willing to accept such a solution merely on the hearsay evidence of a woman who had spent a decade and a half amongst the Chinese of New York City. "Yes, Evelyn,” I said, tolerantly, “It is worth considering, and at the first opportunity I shall look into it. But Just now there must be more important matters for you and me to discuss. Did Miss Clement, by any chance, see Yup Sing?” At the question the girl’s pale cheeks flushed to her temples and her violet «6yes blazed. . “I asked her to see’him, and she did,” was her anwer. "I thought she might learn from him when and where you parted/ and what led up to the plight in which you were found. But he told her that you had failed to keep an engagement with him. He insinuated that you had.come to Chinatown intent upon making trouble, and ended by declaring that he had no time to devote to answering the conundrums of Buch a harebrained American as you had proved yourself. Did you ever hear of such impertinence? I wanted Miss Clement to take me to him that I might tell him what I thought of his outrageous conduct, but she refused. She says he stajnds very high amongst his people, and that It is not well to antagonize him.”

I smiled at her.indignation. "After all,” I said, “he Isn’t so much to blame. I must have cut a rather undignified figure chasing Mr. Johnson through Doyers street, and then falling down cellar stairs. When I am able to get out again, I shall go to Mr. Yup and apologize.” But before I was able to get out again, I changed my mind. To be quite definite I changed It that same evening, when, in reading the reports of O’Hara, the detective who for nearly two weeks had been shhdowing the red giant, Philetus Murphy, I came upon this entry: . . At 5:27 he entered the Mott street store of the Yup Sing Company, remaining until 6:42, when he came out with a tall, thin, well-dressed Chinaman, said to he Yup Sing, himself. Together they went to Ching Wung’s restaurant on Doyers street. From there a Chinaman known as Muk ’Chuen returned with Murphy to Cos Cob.” And the date of this occurrence was the day following my Chinatown misadvetfture.

CHAPTER XVI. A Slump In Crystal Consolidated. The week of my convalescence was not eventful. Evelyn and Mrs. Lancaster called daily, and the reports from O’Hara came each morning with unvarying regularity and equally unvarying lack “of import. The artist, after his visit to Yup Sing, had returned to h\s Cos Cob hermitage, accompanied by a successor to his former unfortunate Chinese servant, and now rarely left his own grounds. Gravid with suggestion as his appearance in Chinatown had seemed at (first, I soon came to realise Hhat It might possibly bear no more vital' significance than irhat altogether commonplaoe proceeding, the quest of a cook.

And in the absence of any confirmatory evidence to the contrary, and with the knowledge gleaned from Mlaa Clement that Yup Sing, on occasions, added to hla regular business of merchandizing that of an employment agent, I saw no reason to attach an undue Importance to the Incident Nevertheless 1 relinquished none of my suspicions regarding Murphy, but continued the detective’s surveillance with a fresh injunction to vigilance. And I did not apologize to Yup ; Sing. Miss Clement, to whom I believe I owe my life, visited me at my request. How I whelmed her with my gratitude is no more material than how she endeavored to make light of her service to me, declaring that such offices were a TJlfrt of her day’s work in her chosen field, and that her day’s work was her passion. And yet it was this part of our lnt#view which gave me my strongest insight into her exceptionally worthy character. Absolutely unselfish, she Joyed in a life that even a religious fafiatic might well have quailed befqre; finding flowers in muck heaps and Jewels amid tinsel. In five minutes, too, I glimpsed her abounding magnetism, the moving agent in that rare efficiency which was part and parcel of her. Later, I learned of the weight of her influence among the dwellers in the Chinese colony? not from any direct narrative of what she had accomplished—for she was chary of speaking of herself —but by deduction, ■ Moreover, my watch, a few trinkets and a little money, taken from me that night In Doyers street, had all been returned through Miss Clement’s good offices; and if, thus far, she had afforded us no real clew In our absorbing exigency, I felt that ultimately her knowledge, coupled with her resourcefulness, would prove to us of unbounded value. And, as events shaped themselves, IwaATOt "wrong. It was now nearly four weeks since Cameron’s disappearance, and a fear that he had met death in some fiendish form at the hands of his abductors had come to be with me very nearly an obsession. The care I exercised In hiding my real Btate of mind from Evelyn could not well be exaggerated. When I appeared to her most hopeful I was actually most despairing. With Miss Clement, however, I had no reason to dissemble. With all frankness I told her of my despair; and when, instead of trying to comfort me with empty words of encouragement she agreed with me that the chances of our ever seeing Cameron again were at a minimum, I liked her the better for being straightforward. "I sometimes feel," I.said to her, making full confession, “that we made a terrible mistake in not at once notifying the authorities. Even now I am inclined to lay the matter before them. Anything would be better than uncertainty. A few arrests and the third degree might work wonders." “Wh%re would you start?" she asked in a blunt, logical, way that reminded me of Evelyn’s faculty of going to the root of things. “You see, you know so little. The story about the portrait and the mirror, the police would regard as more amusing than convincing. And besides, you haven’t any proof. * Yup Sing, you tell me, has the only original letter, and by this time he may have lost It or have forgotten that he ever had It. If you had seen as much of the Chinese as I have, you would appreciate how wily they are. My belief is that the polioe would conclude that Mr. Cameron fell overboard from his yacht and was drowned. Indeed It would be fortunate if they did not take the view that he jumped overboard and committed suicide. Or, worse still, it would not be beyond them, Mr. Clyde, to charge that you pushed him over. The yellow papers would almost certainly intimate sgch a possibility.’’ Had some one else voiced this suggestion I should probably have resented It, hut I understood Miss Clement. She was as kind as her eyes Indicated; and that is speaking very Btrongly. “Nevertheless,” I Bald, with growing determination, “I shall make the case public. It is my duty, and I am willing to run all the risks you point out. I shall start by making a complaint against Peter Johnson. Well have hhn arrested, get his record, and follow along that trail until we turn up the other conspirators. If poor Cameron’s shares fall in the market, they’ll have to fall. If the notoriety precipitates a delayed fatality of which Cameron is the victim, it cannot be helped. I simply will not longer shoulder the responsibility of silenoe." The way she had of silent deliberation was almost masculine. I can see her, even now, as she sat there that afternoon, her hair the same shade of gray as her cloth gown, her fresh, clear complexion lined in thought, her kindly eyes half closed. Foe the better part of a minute she pondered. Then, suddenly, her face awoke, and she asked me: “Will you wait three days longer? That is all. I have channels of Information that are closed to the police, even. There are men in Chinatown, and women too, who would lay down their lives for me. I think some of them would even betray their friends, which is still & greater sacrifice. Wait three days, Mr. Clyde, and if at the end of that time I have not learned for you what you want to know, go on with your publicity idea.’’ (TO BE CONTINUED.)

Loss to Antiquarians.

One of the huge stones of the Avenbury Druidical circle, which Is much larger and older than Stonehenge, has fallal, owing, doubtless, to the effects of weather-heavy rains following a dry season. Aubrey, who acted as guide to Charles 11., on a visit to this district in 1663, declared that Avenbury as far surpassed Stonehenge as a cathedral does a parish church.—London Mall-

WAS WITHIN PALE OF LAW

Unfeeling Father Buried Child as One Might a, Dog, but He Could Not Be Punished. Can m, man be punished for failing to provide a Christian burial for his deceased infant child? In the recent case of Seaton vs. commonwealth, 149 Southwestern Reporter, 871, "defendant was convicted on such a charge, and appeals to the court of appeals of Kentucky, the docket states. A child of the defendant having died, he set about to bury it Taking some piece of rough board, he made a rude box to serve as a coffin. Although he had good lumber out of which he could have made a better and more presentable box, he said that he did not propose using his good lumber for this purpose.. This box “was taken to a point in the woodß lot and a grave dug by two neighbors about two feet deep. Defendant brought the corpse from the house in a 'small paper box to where the grave was being dug, placed it upon the ground and assisted in digging the grave. When completed, the paper box with the corpse was placed in the wooden box and lowered. The grave was then filled to a level With the' surrounding ground, defendant assisting by tramping the dirt as it was being put back into the grave. No-services of any kind were heard at the grave. Do these facts constitute a crime? The court holds that it was the right of the defendant to select the place where hiß child should be buried, and he violated no law or duty in selecting a spot in the woods rather than In a cemetery. There is no rule of law defining how a corpse shall be dressed for burial, or the character of coffin or casket in which it should be incased, or the material out of which the box in which the coffin is to be placed shall be made, nor the depth of the grave; nor is it an offense not to notify relatives and friends so that they may be present at the interment, for they have no legal right to be present. There is no law imposing upon those having in charge the burial of the dead any duty to have the interment accompanied with religious ceremony. The court concludes with the following: “It was no doubt the extremely miserly and niggardly disposition manifested by appellant that aroused the indignation of his neighbors, causing the indictment, and ultimately induced the jury to assess the fine against him wh*icb it did. While, by the facts in the record, appellant is shown to be a - man utterly lacked in parental Instinct, he has kept himself within the pale of the law. At the conclusion of the evidence the trial judge should have directed a verdict in his favor.” 1 h

Public Men and Sleep. The declaration of Doctor Foertmoyer of Cincinnati, that seven hours ol sleep are enough for any man, and that the fellow who indulges hiniself in the arms of Morpheus for a longer period every night Is in danger of injuring himself, comes so closely upon the, heels of President Wilson's flal that he must have nine hours that it is certain to start a controversy almost to end nowhere, for if there is one thing in which every man is a law unto himself, it is in the matter of sleep.

Ex-President Taft, normal man In every respect, enjoys as much sleep as President Wilson needs. Apparently there is no reason why President Wilson should not sleep as long as he likes, for Mr. Taft does. He retires at midnight usually, and arises only In time for a nine o’clock breakfast; so it will he seen that the rputine of a president’s day is not incompatible with feather bed indulgence. McKinley was a light sleeper, being;' a night owl and an early riser, while Grover Cleveland dearly loved to sit up until a late hour with a few cronies, evidently being of the opinion, as the poet has it, that the best way to lengthen one’s days is to steal a few hours from the night.

Bashful Youth Obeyed Orders.

He was a nervous and flustered young; man as he entered the court to give evidence in an important case. It was his first experience of publicity in any shape or form, and the amount of interest shown in his utterance —he who had never even addressed a meeting of the local debating society—went straight to his head. His replies; to say the least of it, were unintelligible. "Speak up! Speak up!” called counsel irritably at last. “The lady shorthand writer cannot hear a single word of what you’re saying. Kindly turn towards her and speak to her.” There was a moment’s pause, while the young man blushed vividly. Then, to the amusement of the court, he rose from his chair, made a profound obeisance in the direction of the aforesaid mentioned young woman, and murmured bashfully: "How d’you do?"

Chance for Inventors.

The preparation of nixtamal by band Is qufte laborious, the Mexican women of the peon clasp spending a fair proportion of each day mashing the day’s supply of nixtamal on a metate with a stone rolling pin after It has been prepared for this process by being boiled withi lime. Nixtamal is the name of the corn itself after having been soi treated; after grinding it is known as masa. As the tortillas and tamales made from masa prepared in the manner described form the staple diet of the Mexican people, a machine for the easy preparation of nixtamal ought to find a wide sale.