SEVEN 
 SMILED 
 AND A 
 FEW 
 FIBvS 
 
 THOMAS 
 
 J 
 
 VIVIAN
 
 SEVEN SMILES AND A FEW FIBS
 
 SEVEN SMILES 
 AND A FEW FIBS 
 
 By THOMAS J. VIVIAN 
 
 Author of " Luther Strong," fl ff r ith Dnoey at Manila," 
 tl Fall of Santiago," etc. 
 
 R. F. FENNO & COMPANY, 9 & " EAST 
 SIXTEENTH STREET, NEW YORK CITY
 
 COPYRIGHT, 1900 
 
 BY 
 
 R. F. PENNO & COMPANY 
 
 Stven Smiln nd * F,w fit,,
 
 TO 
 
 WILLIAM R. HEARST. 
 BY T. J. V. 
 
 20215FO
 
 THE WAITER SMILED.
 
 THE WAITER SMILED. 
 
 "Donnezmoidoncd'p'titspoissonsp'rdeux!" 
 Alphonse sent the order flying down the 
 tube and then trotted quickly back to No. 13, 
 where were two of his special customers. He 
 was one of the upstairs' waiters at the Boodle 
 Purp Restaurant and was also one of the 
 smoothest varlets that ever smirked. Like 
 half the French waiters in San Francisco, he 
 was an Alsatian, the other half being Swiss 
 and Belgians. His real name was Joseph 
 Stein man n, but, having been called Alphouse 
 by the first jovial gentleman he had waited 
 on, he had kept the more Gallic title ever 
 since. 
 
 He spoke English a great deal better than 
 many of the patrons of the house, but no 
 man was quicker than he to appreciate the 
 effect of accepting it as a matter of course 
 that every diner at a French restaurant spoke 
 French fluently. Much of the French he pro- 
 fessed to understand would have been a lingual 
 mystery to most men, but even when some 
 dialectic dude desired him to "Aportaise ung 
 auter bottelyeh der vang," he cheerfully chir- 
 ruped "Oui, m'sieu,' 1 with an instant acquies- 
 ence that was nothing short of fine art.
 
 10 SEVEN SMILES 
 
 "When in the room, he slid about in his list 
 slippers with the noiselessness and agility of 
 a cat, but when about to enter the room, the 
 noise he made with the door-knob stamped 
 him as one of the most generously awkward 
 of men. 
 
 His smile, when it was proper for him 
 to smile, flashed into play like a calcium- 
 light; but when this property was not called 
 for, he put on a mask of imperturbability that 
 was impenetrable. He admitted of no such 
 words in his vocabulary as "compromising 
 position," and it is on record that when 
 toward the end of a classical feast the ladies 
 of the partie-carree were found giving a 
 tableau-vivant of Eve Before and Very Much 
 After the Fall, he simply put the coffee on 
 the floor the table being occupied and 
 asked, "Kirche ou cognac?" 
 
 One of the most touching traits in the 
 character of Alphonse was the affectionate, if 
 not paternal, interest that he took in the ap- 
 petites of his customers. Nothing seemed to 
 gratify him so much as to be intrusted with 
 the choice of an entree, and Coquelin never 
 did anything cleverer than this artist's mo- 
 mentary pause of solicitous consideration, fol- 
 lowed by a radiant glow of discovery, as he 
 trotted off for the morsel which he was certain 
 would tickle m'sieu's palate. To be sure, it 
 was occasionally discovered that this special 
 treat was the same that was being served to 
 every customer, but even that discovery could 
 not altogether efface the gratitied belief that
 
 AND A FEW FIBS. H 
 
 for the moment Alphonse had lived only to 
 serve you, and you alone. 
 
 As a diplomat, indeed, Alphonse could have 
 taught school, with my Lord Sackville on the 
 lowest form. No matter how great the incen- 
 tive or how chock full the room might be of a 
 free-and-easy atmosphere, he never became 
 familiar; and though when off-duty he might 
 indulge in flippant trifling with the joyous 
 young females of his acquaintance, their ap- 
 pearance upstairs as escorted guests changed 
 all that into a deference to "Madame" that 
 was positively overpowering. 
 
 The little fish had dwindled to two or three 
 heads and tails, and Alphonse was listening 
 with charming intentnesss to the order for a 
 particular form of sweetbreads for entree, 
 when there came such a resonant roar of 
 laughter from the next room that even he 
 cocked up one inquiring eye in the direction 
 of the noise. As to young J. Straw Phipps, 
 who was giving the order, he stopped, listened 
 a moment, and then said: 
 
 "Well, I'm jingoed!" 
 
 "Was it very bad?" asked little Sallie 
 Crumpet (sometime of the Old Baldheaded 
 Theater), with that funny little screwing-up 
 of ihe mouth which always seemed so provok- 
 ing in her. 
 
 "Was what very bad?" repeated J. Straw 
 Phipps. 
 
 "Being jingoed," she replied, with really 
 clever seriousness. 
 
 "I suppose you think that's very funny,"
 
 13 SEVEN SMILES 
 
 said Phipps, giving her a kicklet under the 
 table; "when I said I'm jingoed, I used it as 
 an expression of amazement. You heard that 
 laugh, of course?" 
 
 "Ye-es," said Sallie hesitatingly; "I heard 
 a noise." 
 
 ''Well, sir, I know that laugh." 
 
 "Indeed," said Sallie sweetly; "and do 
 you know the man attached to it?" 
 
 "Occasionally," said Phipps; "this time 
 but, oh, it's really too good. I daren't tell 
 you." 
 
 "Daren't tell what?" asked Sallie, sipping 
 at her Bordeaux. 
 
 "Daren't tell you the name of the fellow it's 
 attached to now. But, oh, I know him." 
 
 "Don't believe it." 
 
 "Bet you a box of gloves against a box of 
 cigars." 
 
 "Five-buttoners?" 
 
 "Two-bitters?" 
 
 "Done." 
 
 "Done." 
 
 "And now," asked Sallie, holding out her 
 plate for "two or three more mushrooms," 
 "how are we going to find out if you do 
 know?" 
 
 "Why, I'll name him, and then we'll ask 
 Alphonse here if I'm right." 
 
 "Well, first name him." 
 
 "Oh, don't you fret, young woman, I'll do 
 that quite soon enough for your pocketbook. 
 Alphonse!" 
 
 "Oui, m'sieu."
 
 AND A FEW FIBS. 13 
 
 "I'm making a bet that I know the man 
 who's in that next room there, No. 12." 
 
 "Oui, m'sieu." 
 
 "I say that it's old Sam Catlin, the presi- 
 dent of the Coast Bank. Am I right?" 
 
 "Truly, m'sieu, I cannot to say," replied 
 Alphonse, with a gesture of despair; "it ees 
 an old gaintleman that I have nevair seen be- 
 fore. He is big, so; tall, vairy gray bahld 
 and " 
 
 "Oh, tut, tut," interrupted Sallie, "Al- 
 phonse says he don't know the man, so what's 
 the use of a general description? Every old 
 man that takes a girl out to dinner is gray 
 and bald. I suppose there is a girl there, 
 eh?" 
 
 "Oui, madame." 
 
 'Pretty, of course?" 
 
 'Vairy." 
 
 'Blond?" 
 
 'Not altogezer." 
 
 'Don't you know her, either?" 
 
 'No, madame, I hav' nevair see her before. 
 I think they rnoost be strangers." 
 
 "Strangers be hanged," broke in Phipps; 
 "that's Catlin's laugh; I'd know it anywhere. 
 It's got a rising cackle to it that no other 
 laugh possesses. Here, and with a girl! Oh, 
 it's too good!" 
 
 "Well, Phippy, I don't see that you've got 
 a call on those cigars simply because you keep 
 on repeating that you recognize one man's 
 bray from another. Go and see who it is. I'll 
 trust your word. for once,"
 
 14 SEVEN SMILES 
 
 "Gad, that's so," cried Phipps; "I'll go 
 and look in the door." 
 
 "You cannot," replied Alphonse, "for he 
 iuseest that the door shall be kept cloze, and 
 he even med me to put up a screen about the 
 table." 
 
 "Oh, that's exactly like old Catlin," said 
 Phipps exultingly; "it would kill him dead 
 if this got out. llovv the old man would wilt 
 if I were to drop the key tag of No. 12 into 
 his plate next Sunday when he came around 
 for the collection to our pew." 
 
 "I've got an idea," said Sallie, who had 
 been rubbing her funny little nose with a 
 spoon; "you must disguise yourself as a waiter 
 and go in there." 
 
 "That's a very good idea, Sallie for 
 you," said Phipps, "only it won't work. He 
 knows me, he's the friend of the family, 
 dines with us about once a month, and all 
 that." 
 
 "That's all right," said Sallie, "I haven't 
 been on the stage for nothing." 
 
 "So they say," remarked Phipps, pointing 
 to her glittering solitaires. 
 
 "That's all right," said Sallie again; "yon 
 don't know how much they cost. Come here 
 a minute." 
 
 Very expertly then she combed his hair 
 down into a bang with a fork and parted it in 
 the middle with her fingers. Then from her 
 hand-satchel she got out something that 
 looked like a miniature toothbrush, wet it, 
 and with two or three sweeps converted
 
 AND A FEW FIBS. 15 
 
 Phipps' reddish mustache into a jet black 
 one. 
 
 Next she gave a jerk at her back hair and 
 brought out two little things that looked like 
 fuzzy sausages. These she pulled apart, and 
 then with two bent hairpins hung one over 
 each ear, so that they looked like short 
 whiskers. 
 
 "Now change coats with 'Alphonse and put 
 on his apron," said this nimble-fingered Sal- 
 lie, "and your own mother wouldn't know 
 you." 
 
 The change was effected, and certainly the 
 disguise was astonishingly complete. 
 
 "What shall I take in?" asked Phipps. 
 
 "I vill get you the f rappee which he has 
 order," said Alphonse, and out he slid. The 
 silver pail, with its beads of cold perspiration, 
 was brought, and the next moment Phipps 
 was heard knocking at the door of No. 12, 
 and a great, rich voice shouting out "Come 
 in!" The next moment there was heard a 
 crash, a cry, the overthrow of several pieces 
 of furniture, certain ugly words, a fall, the 
 slam of a door, the clatter of several feet in 
 the passage, and then silence. 
 
 "Bigre de BIGRE," said Alphonse, and then 
 he went out and left Sallie alone. At first 
 she laughed, and laughed so heartily that the 
 tears came and washed out little canals in the 
 rice-powder on her nose. Then, when the 
 silence continued and Phipps failed to come 
 in arid add his roar of laughter to hers, she 
 stopped laughing and rang the bell.
 
 SEVEN SMILES 
 
 
 Alphonse came shuffling 
 into the room, with his 
 most woodeny expression 
 on duty. 
 
 "Oui, madame." 
 
 "Well," said Sallie, with 
 a very forced quiet; "where 
 is Mr. Phipps?" 
 
 "He has gone home, ma- 
 dame." 
 
 "Gone home?" 
 
 "Oui, madame. He a 
 found a friend in the next 
 room." 
 
 "Yes, I know Mr. Cat- 
 lin." 
 
 "No, madame, it was 
 noet M'sieu Catlang. " 
 
 "Who, then, was the 
 friend?" 
 
 "It was the lady." 
 
 "The lady!" cried Sallie, 
 with a flush of real color 
 on her cheeks. 
 
 "Oui, madame. Cannot 
 madame guess who it was?" 
 
 Sallie brought her eye- 
 brows together a moment, 
 and then threw up her head 
 with an almost hysterical 
 tee-nee. 
 
 "Not his wife?" she near- 
 ly shrieked. 
 
 AND THE WAITER SMILED.
 
 THE WIDOW SMILED.
 
 THE WIDOW SMILED. 
 
 POOR old John Tregaskis lay a-dying. In 
 so much as the possession of this world's goods 
 went he certainly was not poor, but it had be- 
 come the fashion among his acquaintances to 
 speak of the sick man in that way. 
 
 He was a Cornishman who had struck it 
 rich in the early days of the bonanza whirl, 
 and he was one of the few who had had the 
 rare common sense to hold on to what he had 
 made. It was a matter, some said, of four or 
 five millions, but this was the usual exaggera- 
 tion his fortune being exactly eight hundred 
 and fifty thousand dollars in United States 
 bonds, and his big house on California Street, 
 with its valuable lot and gorgeous furniture. 
 
 Tregaskis had been a hard-working miner 
 for over fifteen years when good luck came to 
 him, and when he dropped his pick for the 
 last time his hands were as horny as a negro's 
 foot, and his speech as uncouth as that of a 
 Georgia cracker. His first move after securing 
 his fortune was characteristic of the man. 
 
 -"Tell'ee what 'tes, boys," he said to the 
 little crowd of men who were lining the bar 
 of the Virginia City saloon, "I'm goen' 'ome 
 to see my mawther. I 'abn't 'eeard from 'er 
 for twenty years, nor she 'abn't 'eeard from 
 me nuther. Yessir, I'm goen' 'ome and I'll 
 maake 'er a rich wumman."
 
 20 SEVEN SMILES 
 
 "Bully for you, Cousin Jack," said the crowd 
 in a straggling chorus. 
 
 "She shall weear dimonds and ate off goold 
 and selver ef she waants to," continued Tre- 
 gaskis, and with this good-fairy-like resolve he 
 started next day for England. 
 
 After less than six months' absence Tre- 
 gaskis returned to this country a disgruntled 
 and disappointed man. He had hurried down 
 from Liverpool to the little fishing cove at the 
 foot of the Cornish moor, where he had been 
 born about fifty years ago, only to find his 
 dreams dispelled. His mother had been dead 
 for more than six years his father had gone 
 to feed the fishes before John emigrated to 
 America and, saddest thing of all, she had 
 died in want. It was with difficulty that Tre- 
 gaskis could find the weedy mound in the 
 "poor" corner of the crowded little sandy 
 churchyard that marked where the good dame 
 lay, but when found he covered it with a 
 granite obelisk fully twenty feet high, and 
 made it glorious with gold lettering. 
 
 The only relatives that he could find alive 
 were an elder brother a widower and his 
 son. This brother he had never liked, and he 
 renewed that dislike ten minutes after he met 
 him, and continued to hold to it as long as he 
 remained in Polpedden. To the nephew he 
 took an instant fancy, and by an angrily con- 
 ducted arrangement with the lad's father, 
 Tregaskis brought the boy back with him to 
 "make a man of." 
 
 The discovery that his mother was dead and
 
 AND A FEW FIBS. 21 
 
 that she had died without tasting of his long- 
 delayed good fortune, and the unpleasant fact 
 that his elder brother was still the same surly 
 curmudgeon he had always been, were not the 
 only disappointments that Tregaskis had to 
 bear. The Polpedden he had remembered was 
 not the Polpedden that he found. 
 
 Neither the place nor the people were what 
 he had thought they were. The people were 
 narrow in their ways and opinions to an ex- 
 tent that he had never deemed possible. In- 
 stead of being welcomed back by his old 
 friends and companions as a sort of Monte 
 Cristo, he found that most of these friends 
 and companions were dead or had moved 
 away, and that those who remained seemed 
 inclined to doubt his wealth. For one wild 
 hour he entertained the determination to send 
 over here to his attorney for money enough to 
 build a moorstone castle and confute these 
 wretched Didymi. The fit passed, however, 
 and he decided to leave the doubters to vege- 
 tate unenlightened by the Cornish Sea. 
 
 Perhaps as sharp a pang as any experienced 
 by Tregaskis in the process of disillusioning 
 was that he received when he first turned the 
 cliff road and caught sight of his birthplace. 
 The village, which he had been accustomed to 
 consider one of the chief places in the county, 
 turned out to be nothing but a collection of 
 fishermen's huts set down higgledy-piggledy 
 about a breach in the black cliffs. The com- 
 munity, which he had remembered as a model 
 of bustle and enterprise, proved to be a sleepy
 
 22 SEVEN SMILES 
 
 and ill -smelling hamlet. The breezy down 
 above was only a barren plateau, with sparse 
 furze-bushes and a few gray donkeys to break 
 its dead level; the inn was a hovel and the 
 church a pile of damp stones. It was a dis- 
 mal awakening, and it was with bitter satis- 
 faction that Tregaskis shook himself together, 
 remembered his interests in the New World, 
 and turned his back on Polpedden forever. 
 
 Dick Tregaskis was a great hulking lad when 
 he arrived with his uncle at Virginia City, 
 but his face, like those of so many of the Cor- 
 nish, was as clean-cut as a classic cameo; his 
 eyes were dark and intelligent, and his upper 
 lip was already covered with a precocious 
 down. Dick was sent to the best school, and 
 old Tregaskis, hesitating in his loneliness 
 whether to take to drinking or a wife, chose 
 the copulative evil and married. 
 
 The wife he selected was a pretty little 
 shop-girl, as plump as a partridge and as sleek 
 as a dove. She was a demure thing, with the 
 loveliest blue eyes, the tenderest little mouth, 
 and hair the color of a ripe wheat-stalk due 
 to her being of Swedish race. As soon as 
 Agatha Jansen had become Mrs. John Tre- 
 gaskis, she gave the old man no rest until she 
 had induced him to move to San Francisco, 
 where the big house on Nob Hill was bought 
 and furnished in magnificent inelegance. 
 
 Tregaskis was no more at ease in his sur- 
 roundings of yellow satin and crimson portieres 
 than was Mr. Merdle at one of his great din- 
 ner-parties, and he spent most of his indoor
 
 AND A FEW FIBS. 23 
 
 time in a plain little sitting-room, where he 
 fitted up a bar, and where his cronies had a 
 glorious time of it whenever any of them hap- 
 pened to come "to the bay." 
 
 "I caan't staand them thear fal-lals, Aggie," 
 he had said, referring to the satin and por- 
 tieres; "twud 'a been deffurnt ef mawther was 
 'live, but now " And then he would retire 
 to his den. 
 
 Agatha's ambition was to get into what she 
 called "high-toned society," and in the two 
 or three endeavors she made in that aspiring 
 direction she displayed a marvelous adapta- 
 bility, but somehow the Tregaskis family 
 never got very far up. Then, in disgust, the 
 young wife dragged her husband off to Europe, 
 where they spent money lavishly and where 
 poor old Tregaskis enjoyed himself as much as 
 a cat on ice. 
 
 Dick accompanied them on this grand tour, 
 and the attrition of travel went far toward 
 rubbing off the remaining corners from the 
 young man's plastic character and rounding 
 him into a very presentable and attractive 
 fellow. 
 
 Greatly to old John's chagrin, however, his 
 nephew and wife got along together misera- 
 bly. They were forever bickering and saying 
 sharp things to each other, with Agatha's 
 blue eyes glinting with a touch of the old 
 Berserker in them, and Dick's black eyes 
 snapping as his Phoenician ancestors' may 
 have done when they quarreled over the tin 
 shipments on Marazion beach. At these times
 
 24 SEVEN SMILES 
 
 old John would break in with a growl, and 
 altogether it was a wearisome trio. 
 
 Dick was left at Yale when they returned to 
 America, and Mr. and Mrs. Tregaskis came 
 on to the grand desolation of their big house in 
 San Francisco. Soon after that old John fell 
 ill and took to his bed. 
 
 "Aggie," he said feebly, one day, "I giss 
 I'm goen' 'ome fur good thess time. Tele- 
 gram Dickie to come, and when d' comes try 
 au' git 'long weth the booy." 
 
 So Dick came home, big, brown, and hand- 
 some, but as quarrelsome with his little fair- 
 haired aunt as ever. The down on his lip had 
 thickened into a heavy black mustache, and 
 he curled it in a very disdainful way when greet- 
 ing the mistress of the yellow-satin mansion. 
 
 It was a very quiet October evening when 
 the two were summoned to the dying man's 
 room. They came up from the library with 
 flushed faces, and had evidently been engaged 
 in another heated wrangle. 
 
 Poor old John Tregaskis had made his final 
 arrangements with the lawyer and clergyman, 
 and all that he had to do now was to have a 
 few last words with the young folk and then 
 drift quietly away. 
 
 His heavy features were thinrfed by disease 
 and pain, and the great bony hands, which 
 picked at the counterpane, were as white as 
 Agatha's. He feebly put out these hands, 
 one to each of them as they stood at either 
 side of the bed.
 
 AND A FEW FIBS. 
 
 "I've maade 
 a feear de- 
 viding of the 
 money," he 
 said slowly, 
 then stopped 
 and looked in- 
 tently up, smil- 
 ing wanly. 
 
 "Iss, mawth- 
 er," he whis- 
 pered; "I'll be 
 weth'ee en a 
 mennet." 
 
 Again he was 
 silent for a brief 
 space of time, 
 closing his eyes 
 and breathing 
 heavily the 
 while, but re- 
 taining his fee- 
 ble hold of the 
 two watchers' 
 hands. Open- 
 ing his dull 
 eyes he turned 
 them alternate- 
 ly on his wife 
 and nephew. 
 
 "Doan't ee 
 snep-snap and 
 jangle so > 
 when I'm "
 
 26 SEVEN SMILES 
 
 Then the jaw fell and poor old John Tre- 
 gaskis was dead. 
 
 Agatha looked across the bed at Dick. He 
 was standing with bent head and was making 
 a very proper figure of grief, but the effect of 
 the decorous attitude was rather spoiled by a 
 yellow hairpin that was sticking straight up 
 out of his black mustache. Ten minutes ago 
 that hairpin lay implanted in one of the bands 
 of golden hair that nestled upon Agatha's 
 smooth neck. 
 
 THE WIDOW SMILED.
 
 THE BROKER SMILED.
 
 THE BROKER SMILED. 
 THIS is what he wrote: 
 
 "THE SAME OLD PLACE, ) 
 "SAN FRANCISCO, Dec. 20, 1889. j 
 
 "I don't exactly know how to address you 
 now, so I omit the usual form of greeting. I 
 have just been looking over some of your let- 
 ters those written soon after that roystering 
 time of ours in the redwoods and, judging 
 from certain expressions to be found in them, 
 you seem to have been having some roystering 
 times since. 
 
 "Then you were the contralto of Trinity 
 Church choir and were as demure as a school- 
 girl under the eyes of her teacher. A new 
 dress was an event, and you had to plan for a 
 week to 'get off' for a day. I'm not quite 
 sure that I was the 'only one' then, but I'm 
 reasonably certain -that there were not very 
 many others. 
 
 "Now you are a star in comic opera, and New 
 York dudedom so the papers say bows at 
 your feet and their upward and silk-clad con- 
 tinuations. That symmetry of which I used 
 to flatter myself I was the sole admiring critic
 
 30 SEVEN SMILES 
 
 is now extolled by every critic and paragrapher 
 of the great metropolis. Correspondents find 
 your flat, conquests and your clothes or 
 rather, your want of them a fruitful subject 
 for letters to out-of-town newspapers; and, 
 worst of all, your alleged portrait has appeared 
 in the Police Gazette. 
 
 "You belong to the public! 
 
 "I don't suppose you'll answer this. I don't 
 suppose it has ever entered your pretty head 
 that I keep my end of the golden thread of 
 our past pleasure ready to meet yours in a 
 true lover's knot again; indeed, I guess 
 you've lost your end, or rather it has been 
 frayed out into nothing long ago. I don't 
 suppose you ever think of coming this way 
 again, or that you would turn your trim feet 
 my way if you did. I don't suppose you will 
 be able to identify your correspondent unless 
 he signs his name in full. Just as a 'flyer/ 
 however, he'll try and sign himself plainly 
 and devotedly, JACK." 
 
 After he had read over the letter, and had 
 made one or two alterations for Jack Pickens 
 was a lawyer he dealt himself two photo- 
 graphs out of a pack that was scattered over a 
 side table. One showed the face and shoul- 
 ders of a young girl, with features that were 
 full of contradictions. The mouth was smil- 
 ing, but sedate; the corners of the lips rather 
 severely drawn down, but the chin dangerously 
 full and rounded; the nose might have been 
 called classical had it not been slightly tip-
 
 AND A FEW FIBS. 3i 
 
 tilted; the forehead was broad and intellectual, 
 and the eyes were bright with mischief. The 
 other portrait showed the full-length figure of 
 the same girl as Captain of the Eazzle-Dazzle 
 Guard in "The Jolly Pirates." There was no 
 contradiction of features now. The face was 
 the incarnation of archness and wile a studied 
 archness and a calculating wile, it is true. 
 Yet the face was prettier, because its owner 
 had carefully applied herself to make it so; 
 and even the homeliest of our sisters can get 
 some good results from an application of this 
 sort. The costume of the Captain was so de- 
 signed that it left but little of the Amazon's 
 figure to be guessed at. A glove-fitting 
 doublet, a narrow zone of slashed trunks, un- 
 wrinkled hose, two brave plumes in a tiny hat 
 above and low slippers on two tiny feet below, 
 a toy rapier and kid gauntlets and there was 
 the Captain prepared to kill. The hose, being 
 unwrinkled and extending from ankle to hip, 
 displayed their contents to be so pleasantly 
 uunded, so full of enchanting curves and un- 
 dulations, that Jack did not wonder at the 
 ecstatic exclamation of the Planet's critic that 
 "Sybil Gerard's legs were poems in lavender." 
 A few months passed, and then, one even- 
 ing as he was sitting before the fire in his com- 
 fortable rooms, trying to convince himself 
 that he was enjoying the latter half of Mark 
 Twain's "Yankee at King Arthur's Court," 
 there came a knock at the door. He shouted, 
 "Come!" the door opened, and framed be- 
 tween the lintel and portiere stood Sybil Gerard.
 
 32 SEVEN SMILES 
 
 "What, Sybil!" he exclaimed, sending Hank 
 and Sir Sagramont le Desirous flying into a 
 corner. 
 
 "Herself, I believe," said the visitor, com- 
 ing in and drawing the door-curtain as though 
 she were quite at home. 
 
 "Her own pretty, gracious self very gra- 
 cious to come here, and prettier than ever!" 
 
 "Ah, it's the same old Jack, I see," said 
 Sybil, with a laugh that lit up her face like a 
 love-flame, and that turned the gas yellow. 
 
 By this time Jack was standing in front of 
 her, holding her two beautifully gloved hands 
 in his. 
 
 "May I?" he asked, slightly leaning forward. 
 
 "May you what?" 
 
 "May I kiss you?" 
 
 "Why, of course you may; and as many 
 times as you like." 
 
 With that he imprisoned her by force of 
 arms, and did not release her until she slipped, 
 panting and limp, through his hands. 
 
 "The same old Jack," she said again, as 
 soon as she had regained her breath, and had 
 sunk into a chair; "except that this time you 
 asked me." 
 
 "Well," said he, "you see the conditions are 
 somewhat changed. Formerly I used to flatter 
 myself that I was the superior animal; but 
 now, since you have become the pet of the 
 New York dudes, why, of course I must con- 
 fess your animal superiority." 
 
 "That's anice speech, now, isn't it?" said 
 Sybil, rolling up her gloves and throwing the.
 
 AND A FEW FIBS. 33 
 
 little kid ball at him. "And after I have 
 come three thousand miles to see you, too." 
 
 ''Did you really do that?" asked Jack, kiss- 
 ing the projectile before dexterously pitching 
 it back, so that it struck with a gentle thud 
 against the white fullness that swept out from 
 beneath the provoking chin. 
 
 "Well," said Sybil, nestling herself in the 
 big, easy-chair that one she had used to call 
 l iers "I'll tell you the truth." 
 
 Jack lifted his hands in mock amazement. 
 
 "I came out here to see my mother.'' 
 
 "Dear child," exclaimed Jack. 
 
 "Don't get too complimentary," she cried, 
 with a pretty little wave of her hands and, 
 dear me, how they were be-ringed! "I said I 
 was going to tell you the truth, and I'll do it. 
 I came out to see my mother because last 
 December she and I were left a little property 
 by some old New Jersey relative that I had 
 never heard of, and I heard a few weeks ago 
 that this parent of mine was bossing things in 
 a way I didn't like. So 1 thought I'd just 
 investigate." 
 
 "Filial shrewdness more than filial affec- 
 tion," said Jack. "Property warth much?" 
 
 "Oh, not enough to warrant the employ 
 ment of a legal agent," replied Sybil, with a 
 laug'h that was like the echo of a champagne 
 supper. Then, with a sharp turn of demeanor, 
 she sprang out of her chair and came over and 
 knelt at Jack's knees. "You're too far away 
 over here," she said, with a charming petu- 
 lance.
 
 34 SEVEN SMILES 
 
 "You can be closer than that," said Jack, 
 a little wildly. 
 
 "Then why don't you take me up?" 
 
 Some little time after, fitting the end of a 
 finger in the crease which she called the dim- 
 ple in his chin, "Jack," she said, "did you 
 really keep those old letters of mine?" 
 
 "Every one of them," said Jack, "even that 
 in which you called me a 'deceiving scoun- 
 drel.'" 
 
 Just then a hack stopped outside and a 
 peculiarly loud, strident voice was heard ask- 
 ing, "Is this No. 703?" 
 
 "Who in thunder is that?" exclaimed Jack, 
 moving to the window. 
 
 "I think," said Sybil, looking steadfastly 
 into the fire, "I think it is Henry!" 
 
 "And pray," Jack said, wheeling quickly 
 about, "who may Henry be?" 
 
 "Oh, Henry!" she replied, smiling up beau- 
 tifully at him, "Henry Van Norp, the rich 
 New York broker, you know." 
 
 "I don't know the man," said Jack, "and 
 I don't want to know any man with a steam- 
 siren voice like that." 
 
 "All the same," she answered, "that voice 
 has been worth many a thousand dollars to 
 old Van Norp." 
 
 "Oh, he's old, is he?" 
 
 "Well, he's past the vealy age," replied 
 Sybil, pushing out her full chin at him. 
 
 "Thanks. By the way," said Jack, speaking 
 quickly, as slow, solid footsteps were heard
 
 AND A FEW FIBS. 
 
 coming up the stairs, "how 
 did old Van Norp know you 
 were here?" 
 
 "I just told him I was com- 
 ing to see a former sweetheart, 
 and he said he had no objec- 
 tion. Besides, even " 
 
 Once more that evening 
 Jack shouted "Come !" only 
 much more sharply this time, 
 and Mr. Van Norp entered 
 a bald, burly man, heavy of 
 figure and manner; a thick, 
 grisly mustache showed in bold 
 relief against a richly colored 
 face, keen, dark, good-tem- 
 pered eyes; excellently clothed 
 the very impersonation of 
 mature vigor and comfortable 
 circumstance. 
 
 He was not a man given to 
 wasting words. "Corne, Sy," 
 he said in his prize bear-pit 
 voice, "get your duds on, little 
 woman, and we'll drop around 
 and see the minstrels." 
 
 Then Jack rebelled. This 
 imperious ownership stung 
 him" like a whiplash. 
 
 "Sybil," he said, drawing 
 her great easy-chair closer to 
 the fire, "don't go yet, dear. 
 Think how long it is since I 
 have seen you. Think a min-
 
 36 SEVEN SMILES 
 
 ute of the old days when you would have 
 struck the man who even hinted at any such 
 
 thing as master and mistress. Think " 
 
 A queer, gurgling sound from the direction 
 of Mr. Van Norp interrupted him. Jack 
 looked round and saw a beautifully folded silk 
 umbrella extended in the air. The gold han- 
 dle was grasped in Mr. Van Norp's hand, 
 while the ferrule was pointed at Sybil, who 
 had already put on her furred wraps, and now, 
 with bent head, was drawing on her gloves 
 over her jeweled fingers. 
 
 AND THE BROKER SMILED.
 
 THE PURSER SMILED.
 
 THE PURSER SMILED. 
 
 THERE were not many white passengers on 
 that trip of the San Pablo to China and Japan, 
 but had they been much more numerous there 
 was a trio standing near the gangplank that 
 could not have escaped observation. 
 
 Guessing at their relations, one to another, 
 I put them down either as being a young wife 
 with an elderly husband and a young male 
 friend of the family; or, a newly married pair, 
 with a father come to wish them Ion voyage. 
 "Whichever might be the case, it was very evi- 
 dent that the lady was the first person of the 
 trinity; or, rather, the common center of at- 
 traction, around which each male had his 
 orbit. It was, indeed, curious to notice the 
 badly concealed disturbance with which each 
 satellite watched the other whenever the lady 
 showed a disposition to put herself into more 
 familiar conjunction with one than with the 
 other. 
 
 Truth to tell, the petticoated planet was 
 quite attractive enough to throw more than 
 two attendant twinklers off their balance. 
 She was small in stature, but as neat and trim 
 as a new clothespin. A spruce little hat, 
 with something of apple-green upon it, half-
 
 40 BEVEN SMILES 
 
 Covered her head, leaving exposed behind Jt 
 loosely braided coil of hair resting on a firm 
 White neck, and showing in front a wavy 
 fringe concealing a low, broad forehead, the 
 hair being now, whatever its original color 
 was, of a bright-golden hue. The blond 
 locks corresponded with a pair of blue eyes, 
 smooth round cheeks, a short straight nose, a 
 smiling mouth, and dimpled chin; in fact, the 
 charming head and face of a fair woman. A 
 long sealskin cloak, trimmed with unplucked 
 otter, covered most of her figure (the bay breeze 
 being cold), but being worn open in front dis- 
 closed a "swelling bust and tapering waist," 
 covered with a black silk dress, short enough 
 to show a pair of the neatest little feet imag- 
 inable. 
 
 The gentlemen were of two thoroughly dis- 
 tinct types. The younger was of medium 
 height, heavy of limb, and florid of face, 
 brown of eye, with reddish-brown hair and 
 mustache; much given to smiling and show- 
 ing a set of solid teeth between two full red 
 lips; boasting a pair of modish and well- 
 creased trousers, and gorgeous as to the hands 
 in a resplendent pair of very new and very 
 yellow dogskin gloves. The elder was a 
 much taller man, with what Lady Jane would 
 have called a "massive torso," and having a 
 free, swinging gait that told at once of sup- 
 pleness and strength. His face was of that clear 
 pallor that does not mean unhealthiness, lit 
 up by a pair of restless, bright greenish-gray 
 r %na with its paleness accentuated by a
 
 AND A FEW FIBS. 41 
 
 full coal-black beard; this, like the hair, 
 which was worn long, just beginning to get 
 grizzled. His clothes fitted him loosely, yet 
 well, and his low-cut vest displayed the 
 "unstudied elegance" of a rumpled shirt- 
 front, punctuated with diamond studs and 
 set off with a paper collar worn without a 
 necktie. 
 
 When the last whistle sounded, one point 
 in connection Avith the three was settled the 
 young gentleman was not to be a fellow pas- 
 senger, for, after bidding his friends adieu (in 
 open, friendly carelessness with one, and in 
 subdued affection with the other), he swung 
 down the gang-plank to the wharf and tried 
 to hide his feelings in earnest conversation 
 with a policeman. The manner of this leave- 
 taking seemed to be a matter of some amuse- 
 ment to the two remaining on board, and they 
 went below quietly laughing. They were up 
 on deck before we were abreast Alcatraz, and 
 set systematically to work walking the deck, 
 arm-in-arm, the lady having replaced her 
 hat with a headdress of white fluffy wool 
 and the gentleman looking doubly strong and 
 big in a capoted coat, reaching to his heels, 
 and a high, flat-topped German cap. From 
 ihe .decidedly confidential character of their 
 conversation and attitude I became convinced 
 that the surmise as to their being newly-mated 
 M&y and October was the correct one. But 
 my acumen received a decided set-back a lit- 
 tle later, when, at the lunch-table, my place
 
 42 SEVEN SMILES 
 
 happening to be next the cwo, I heard her call 
 him "daddy." 
 
 There and elsewhere I was an interested ob- 
 server of the two. The father was, in one 
 sense of the word, an accomplished man. He 
 spoke French and German well, and with 
 equal fluency, and was versed in the cookery 
 of every known cuisine. He had been a great 
 traveler and could talk from experience of 
 Lower California and South Africa, and had 
 been on the canals of Holland and the river 
 St. Lawrence. 
 
 He had something more than a smatter- 
 ing of navigation and was a practical mech- 
 anician; knew the .customs duties of most 
 countries and the habits of the elephant; could 
 tell the distance between Athens and St. 
 Petersburg and the difference between a 
 blackthorn and a varnished pear-stick; swore 
 like a heathen and rated jewels like a Hebrew. 
 There was a free-and-easiness about his man- 
 ners, it is true, but there was withal a certain 
 polish on them, and, conversely, while he was 
 guilty of no extravagant solecism, there were 
 sundry little lapses in speech and etiquette 
 which betrayed the veneer of acquired polite- 
 ness. Cosmopolitan in style and conversation, 
 it was difficult to place his nationality, but 
 whatever he might be, Armenian or American, 
 he was a most entertaining companion and 
 was the companion of a most entertaining 
 young lady. 
 
 She, like her father, had been a great 
 traveler; knew every nook and corner of
 
 AND A FEW FIBS. 43 
 
 Great Britain, and had just returned to the 
 United States from an extended tour through 
 Chili and Peru. Her life there had included 
 many an odd adventure, and she gave several 
 little glimpses of peculiar South American 
 customs. Her mode of travel struck me as 
 being singularly adapted to the country, it 
 having been an unbroken round of camping 
 out, or as she expressed it, "tenting." She 
 was a capital sailor, and in the dirtiest weather 
 and the weather is sometimes quite "dirty" 
 even on the Pacific she never failed to appear 
 at breakfast in the neatest of wrappers and 
 with the best of appetites. She wore, too, a 
 small fortune in diamonds; one gorgeous 
 cluster ring being a present from her "daddy," 
 on her last birthday, she informed me, and 
 the earrings and pin being also gifts from 
 other kind friends. Her wardrobe, I gathered, 
 must have been very extensive, for in answer 
 to an inquiry from her father I overheard her 
 say she had brought "twenty trunks" with 
 her. 
 
 Her speaking voice was low and well modu- 
 lated, and one evening when there was a little 
 music in the saloon she sang Lady Hill's 
 pathetic, if hackneyed song, "In the Gloam- 
 ing," in a contralto voice of much sweetness 
 and ~ with very good style and expression. 
 But being handed a song by some one present 
 with the remark that it would just suit her 
 voice, she returned it with a naive reply 
 that she did not think it was low enonjrh 
 for her as it was in sharps, and she could "only
 
 44 SEVEN SMILES 
 
 manage pieces that were away down in the 
 flats." She Avas a general favorite on board, 
 even with those of her own sex, and deserv- 
 edly so, for a pleasanter, brighter, more lady- 
 like little soul it would be hard to find. She 
 appeared to entertain a decided liking for her 
 "daddy," being at once an affectionate child 
 and a familiar friend. 
 
 The conversation happening to turn one day 
 upon birthplaces, the young lady surprised us 
 all by stating that hers was Glasgow, and by 
 giving us a rich example of Scotch dialect. 
 Moreover, she said, all her parents were Scotch 
 for more generations back than she could re- 
 member. Happening soon after to meet her 
 father, I said to him, in all innocence: 
 
 "You are Scotch, sir, I understand?" 
 
 "Well," he answered, in some surprise, "if 
 being born in New York makes me so, then I 
 am." 
 
 I could not exactly understand this, and 
 sought the purser for light in my darkness. 
 
 "Who are the lady and gentleman who sit 
 next me at table?" I asked him. 
 
 For answer he took down a list of the 
 passengers, and, being a taciturn man, pointed 
 to the names, "Mr. and Miss Rousette." 
 
 "Who is Mr. Rousette?" I pursued. 
 
 "Half owner of dime museum, New York, 
 and the discoverer of the two-headed girls, 
 loose-skinned man, and tattooed Greek noble- 
 man," answered the purser. 
 
 "Where is he going?"
 
 AND A FEW FIBS. 
 
 45 
 
 "To join Chiarini's circus 
 at Yokohama with Zazel." 
 
 "And where is Zazel?" I 
 said. 
 
 "Miss Kousette," he an- 
 swered. 
 
 "What is her business?" 
 
 "At present it is being 
 shot out of a cannon on to 
 a trapeze, but she has just 
 finished a season in South 
 America as a star bicycle 
 rider." 
 
 I had just breath enough 
 left to ask: 
 
 "And are they father and 
 daughter?" 
 
 AND THE PURSER SMILED.
 
 THE GRANDMA SMILED.
 
 THE GRANDMA SMILED. 
 
 "WON'T you please throw Flossie in for 
 me?" 
 
 Maurice Connolly was just about to take a 
 header into a great roll of surf when he heard 
 the request. He had come down to Santa Cruz 
 in a very unenviable frame of mind. Two 
 years ago his grandfather then an old chap of 
 seventy-one had married again, and Maurice, 
 who had been led to believe he would be sole 
 heir, his father being dead, was considerably 
 put out thereat so much so, indeed, that when 
 he received the news from Coronado, where 
 the new grandmother had been met, his tem- 
 per got the better of his diplomacy, and he 
 wrote back a bitter, rude letter, to which the 
 old gentleman replied with a check for $10,- 
 000 and the advice to buy an interest in a 
 Montana sheep ranch. Maurice cashed the 
 check, and passed through Montana on his 
 way-to Europe. 
 
 While there he received one or two little 
 "assistances" from Grandfather Connolly, as 
 well as the comforting news that his nose had 
 not been put out of joint by the appearance 
 of a new heir. It was not, of course, to be ex- 
 pected. That he knew, but all the time he
 
 50 SEVEN SMILES 
 
 was away Maurice never took up the San 
 Francisco papers in the American Exchange 
 without fearfully glancing over the column of 
 "Births." 
 
 Two years passed, and then, satisfied that 
 his grandfather could not long delay the gen- 
 tlemanly act of dying and dying childless, 
 Maurice came scurrying back to California. 
 When Maurice called at the old man's office 
 he found him very feeble, but very keen and 
 very suspicious. 'He was told, rather coldly, 
 that his old quarters were at his disposal, but 
 Maurice said something about "Meeting that 
 
 d n woman," to which Connolly, Sr., said 
 
 "Just so," and did not repeat the invitation. 
 Then it was that Maurice flounced on* to Santa 
 Cruz, where, on the third morning after his 
 arrival, he was requested to "Throw Flossie 
 in." 
 
 Turning, he saw that Flossie was a tiny 
 spaniel held in a little lady's arms, and his 
 first impulse was to pass on. But when he 
 looked again at the little lady's sweet face, 
 and noted the expression of simplicity and 
 candor in her violet-colored eyes he relented. 
 
 "With pleasure," he said, stretching out 
 his hands for the dog; "but why don't you 
 take him in yourself?" 
 
 "Because I cannot swim, and because I 
 dread the ridiculous display of two poor little 
 creatures I mean Flossie and myself pad- 
 dling about in the froth. Then, too," she
 
 AND A FEW FIBS. 51 
 
 added, "I have noticed how splendidly you 
 swim." 
 
 Maurice looked keenly at her once more, 
 and, being satisfied, he asked her if she would 
 like to learn to swim. 
 
 "Nothing would please me more," answered 
 the little lady with a radiant smile, "if I only 
 had a teacher." 
 
 "The etiquette of a bathing place is a good 
 deal like that of a masked ball, I take it," 
 said Maurice, "and if you will allow me, I 
 should be very happy to act in the capacity of 
 teacher." 
 
 The offer was pleasantly accepted, and the 
 arrangement made that Maurice should wait 
 for her outside the Star of the West, bath- 
 house at eleven the next morning, Flossie's dip 
 being postponed until that time. When she 
 came out of the bath-house, Maurice had a 
 sort of spasm of surprise. When speaking to 
 her on the preceding day he had "sized her 
 up" as a diminutive creature, in a white dress 
 that had been made full and loose for artistic 
 reasons, but when she appeared in a close- 
 fitting bathing suit of dark-blue jersey cloth, 
 he had to confess that there was no need of 
 the modiste's cunning. She was small, of 
 course, but as plump as a cherub, and as 
 daintily proportioned as a Lorelei. Not much 
 guesswork was needed concerning the har- 
 monious proportions, and there was quite a 
 buzz among the bathers as Maurice took her 
 by the hand and led her gallantly into the 
 surf.
 
 62 SB YEN SMILES 
 
 "I did not bring Flossie," she' gasped, as 
 the first wave came surging up around her, 
 "as I tho-o-o-ugh-t-t one of us s-s would be 
 quite enough to-o-o begin with." 
 
 She shivered and chattered about the teeth 
 for a little while, but was so quietly brave and 
 so dexterous and determined that Maurice 
 declared with sturdy sincerity that she wa3 
 the most apt pupil he had ever had. 
 
 Well, there were other lessons in the surf, 
 and then the glorious gallops along the 
 cliff road, with the roystering wind blowing 
 in from the sea; and the charming drives 
 to the Big Trees, and the comforting walks 
 under the tonic pines. And 0, too, the 
 lazy, moonlit evenings and the pleasureful 
 nights! 
 
 She was the gentlest, tenderest little com- 
 panion that a man could possibly wish for; a 
 bright, unaffected lady; a fond and attractive 
 woman. 
 
 She refused him nothing, and gave herself 
 up to him with sweet abandonment. All 
 she asked was that he should not seek to 
 know whether she called herself Mrs. Alex- 
 ander for fancy or for fact. 
 
 "Let me be just what I am to you," she 
 said, "and you can take it for granted that if 
 circumstances so frame it, you will be 'called,' 
 as certain of our brethren say." 
 
 So, when some four happy weeks had passed, 
 the little lady one day left him, and then 
 Santa Cruz seemed but a foggy cove to Mau- 
 rice, and drawing on Grandfather Connolly, he
 
 AND A FEW FIBS. 53 
 
 cleared the blurr from his eyes, set his lips 
 together, and went to Mexico. 
 
 A full year passed before the "call" came. 
 In the romantic hope of re-finding Love's 
 young dream, Maurice had come back to 
 Santa Cruz, and there, sure enough, three 
 days after his arrival, the following note was 
 handed him with his key: 
 
 "If Mr. Maurice Connolly has not quite for- 
 gotten his little friend upon whom he con- 
 ferred the Disorder of the Bath some twelve 
 months ago, she would much like to see him. 
 For reasons that are real, though recent, his 
 sometime companion in that delightful Dis- 
 order is compelled to ask Mr. Connolly to 
 come to Monterey, where she is staying at the 
 Del Monte. This is written on Monday, and 
 if Mr. Connolly can make it convenient to 
 meet the writer near the tennis courts here on 
 any of the three following afternoons she will 
 have much pleasure in showing him that he is 
 not forgotten as well as something in which 
 he should feel a great interest." 
 
 Maurice froze and burned by turns as he 
 read -this odd communication, but he grew 
 especially warm about the ears when he came 
 to the final phrase. 
 
 "Quaint and original as ever," he said, then 
 Dragged out his watch, ran downstairs and 
 scampered to the depot. 
 
 She was at the tryst, looking so enticing in
 
 54 SEVEN SMILES 
 
 her pretty lounging costume of soft, clinging 
 stuff, and with her eyes sparkling so brightly 
 when Maurice hove in sight, that he felt all 
 the old ardor sweep over him like a warm 
 breeze. 
 
 She held up a warning hand as he rushed 
 forward. 
 
 "There is a young gentleman around that 
 azalea bush," she said, "who might be 
 shocked." 
 
 "A young gentleman," growled Maurice. 
 
 "Yes," said she, smiling; "I'm sure I re- 
 ferred to him in my note." 
 . Then Maurice smiled, too, and passing 
 round the azalea together they halted before 
 a much be-laced baby wagon, drawn by a 
 stolid bonne, and in it lay a tiny child asleep. 
 
 Gently drawing down a gorgeous counter- 
 pane of quilted satin, she asked if Maurice 
 didn't think "he was splendid?" 
 
 "Well," said the young man, with pardona- 
 ble self-complacency, "of course " 
 
 At this moment he was struck rather 
 smartly on the back, and turning hastily 
 round, saw Grandfather Connolly standing 
 there. 
 
 "He, he!" cackled the old man and Mau- 
 rice could not help noticing how ancient and 
 weazened he was "Ha, ha!" he cackled 
 again, "Sorry for you, Maurice, my boy, but 
 we old fellows, Do Lesseps and the rest of us, 
 you know, will keep up this sort of thing, you 
 see." 
 
 What did it mean?
 
 AND A FEW FIBS. 55 
 
 Maurice glanced at the 
 lady, but she was engaged 
 in rearranging the child's 
 cover, and the bonne was 
 staring straight away to 
 Normandy. 
 
 "Wasn't aware you knew 
 my wife," pursued the old 
 man, with another rattling 
 laugh; " 'that d -- n wo- 
 man,' you know." 
 
 "Your wife," gasped 
 Maurice, tottering back- 
 wai% d as the wllo l e situa- 
 ^ on an( ^ Plt flashed lurid- 
 ly upon him. "This child, 
 then, is my -- " 
 
 "Is your own uncle," 
 said the little lady sweetly. 
 
 "Is my son my heir," 
 wheezed the old gentle- 
 man, squaring his shoul- 
 ders. 
 
 "Towrson! My uncle!" 
 repeated Maurice, in a 
 hollow voice. "Then 
 you madam are my 
 grandmother!" 
 
 AND THE GKANDMA 
 SMILED.
 
 THE LADY SMILED.
 
 THE LADY SMILED. 
 
 THE Saturday afternoon train at Point 
 Tiburon was crowded as usual and people were 
 streaming through the 'Cars in the hurried 
 search for vacant seats. Little Mr. Tom N. 
 Oddy, who was just starting out on his two 
 days' vacation, knew there would be this rush 
 and so was among the first to scamper off the: 
 boat, clamber into the nearest coach, and 
 preempt the best middle seat on the shady 
 side of the car. Then, after the miserable 
 fashion of his kind, he proceeded to cover the 
 entire seat with himself, his overcoat, his 
 cane, and his valise. 
 
 This exercise of selfishness accomplished, he 
 drew an evening paper from his pocket and 
 pretended to be absorbed in the baseball re-- 
 ports. As he read, however, he could not 
 help being conscious of a persistent shadow 
 that fell upon the sheet. Other shadows went 
 forward and backward like jostling silhouettes, 
 but this one stayed. Glancing out of the 
 corner of his right eye, he saw a small black- 
 gloved hand resting upon the top of the seat 
 Just where his overcoat lay, and then, curios- 
 ity leading him further afield, he glanced still 
 more and found that the hand belonged to 
 one'of the most charming women it had ever 
 been his undeserved good fortune to see. 
 
 Her face was rather pale, almost sallow in- 
 deed, but lit up by a pair of great black eyes 
 that were as luminous as a child's and as gen-? 
 tie as a doe's. The nose was short, straight,
 
 60 SEVEN SMILES 
 
 but rather too stout; the mouth was full and 
 red, with a provoking little droop to the lower 
 lip; and the chin was round and slightly 
 double. The eyebrows were heavy and the 
 hair was black with a coppery tint at the 
 edges. The dress was black, relieved by three 
 great damask roses at the bosom, and was so 
 draped as to show, with some degree of 
 accuracy, a lithe but well-rounded figure. 
 
 It may be repeated that little Mr. Tom N. 
 Oddy felt that he had never before seen so be- 
 witching a creature, and when she looked at 
 him in a pleading, timorous way and asked in 
 a low voice if "this seat were engaged," he 
 swept his things out of the way with a single 
 movement and declared himself delighted to 
 be able to say it was not. She thanked him 
 with a little faltering smile and sat down. 
 
 She was unprovided with current literature, 
 and so little Mr. Tom N. Oddy, as the first 
 advance toward his determined plan of mak- 
 ing himself agreeable, offered her part of his 
 paper. At this she stiffened somewhat, then 
 prettily declined the offer, saying that it hurt 
 her eyes to read on the train. As she said so 
 she turned those beautiful orbs of hers upon 
 the young man, and just to show that he 
 knew what was proper under the circum- 
 stances, he replied that no book or paper that 
 had yet been written was worth spoiling those 
 eyes over. She threw up the lids a little more 
 at this, then smiled again and lifted her 
 shoulders in something very near a shrug. 
 
 Little Mr. Tom N. Oddy observed this he
 
 AND A FEW FIBS. 61 
 
 was a very observing young man and haz- 
 arded the remark that she was a foreigner. 
 
 "No," she replied; "I was born in Cali- 
 fornia." 
 
 "Ah, indeed," said he, with fine spirit, "so 
 was I so that we are a native son and daughter 
 of the Golden West, and therefore related." 
 , "That's quite ingenious," she remarked; 
 "are you a lawyer?" 
 
 "No," he answered, getting rather red in 
 the face; "I'm connected with Messrs. Sock, 
 Tie & Co." 
 
 "I have a a friend who deals there," said 
 she sweetly; "are you one of the partners?" 
 
 "No," he replied, feeling very warm about 
 the ears; "I have charge of the suspender de- 
 partment." 
 
 "Oh, that must be very nice," said she; 
 "such a pleasant, clean business, isn't it?" 
 
 "Yes," he replied, but without any very 
 great enthusiasm, for this was a subject on 
 which he did not particularly care to converse. 
 He did not mind it when he was with the 
 "fellows" Avho earned their living in the same 
 "state of life," but at present, when he was 
 deeply possessed of the necessity of making an 
 impression on this beautiful creature, he felt 
 that the topic was one that ought to be 
 changed as speedily as possible. So, grasping 
 his cane in such a way as to bring a flashing 
 ring within range of those lovely eyes, he 
 asked their owner if she was going far. 
 
 "To Santa Eosa," she said; "and you?" 
 
 "Oh, I'm going on back of Cloverdale for a
 
 62 SEVEN SMILES 
 
 little roughing it," he said, with delightful 
 airiness, although he forgot to add that the 
 scene of the roughing was his mother's ranch. 
 
 "Does it hurt you to rough it?" she 
 asked, with such gentle interest that he 
 thought he had never met with anything quite 
 so tender and unsophisticated. 
 
 "Bless you, no," he cried; "why, it's the 
 pleasantest kind of life. Fresh air, fresh 
 milk, and an occasional bear " 
 
 "Bears!" she cried; "but surely those nasty 
 hugging things must be dangerous?" 
 
 "Of course they are," said he valiantly; 
 "but I go well prepared. I have a revolver 
 in my valise, and this cane is a sword-cane." 
 
 "Is it really, now?" she asked, with ready 
 interest; "how does it work? But perhaps it 
 is not right to display it here." 
 
 "I don't know but what you're right," as- 
 sented little Mr. Tom N. Oddy, "especially as 
 that fellow across the way has done nothing 
 but stare at us ever since the train started. I 
 must say he's exceedingly impertinent to go 
 looking like that at people he don't know." 
 
 "Ah, but that's not all," said she; "would 
 you believe it, that man has followed me ever 
 since I left my house, got on the same boat, 
 and now here he is on the same train. Oh, if 
 I only But there, don't let's notice him. 
 Tell me about your bear hunts and how you 
 would use your knife if you saw a bear going 
 to hug me." 
 
 Little Mr. Tom N. Oddy was trying hard 
 \q remember the most exciting bear adventure
 
 AND A FEW FIBS. 63 
 
 he had ever read of, when the engine gave a 
 shrill toot. 
 
 "Oh, my!" cried she, laying her hand on 
 little Mr. Tom N. Oddy's arm; "I do believe 
 we're going through a tunnel." 
 
 There was no doubt about it, and with an- 
 other toot the engine plunged into the long, 
 black hole. A wild, wicked hope leaped up in 
 little Mr. Tom N. Oddy's little mind, but it 
 only lived a moment, for there, directly over 
 the next seat, was hung a lighted lamp. It 
 only burned dimly, and the light it gave out 
 in the blackness of the tunnel was very faint, 
 but it was quite enough to stay little Mr. Tom 
 N. Oddy from doing the desperate thing he 
 had contemplated. He could see the pale 
 outline of her face and two lustrous spots 
 which showed where her eyes were gleaming, 
 but so, too, he could see the oval of that fel- 
 low's face across the way, and was very sure 
 that in the upper half of that oval, just where 
 it was cut by the dark line of the hat-brim, 
 there were two other eyes which were fixed 
 very persistently in his direction. There was 
 no use trying to talk against the roar of the 
 tunnel, but when they were clear of it and in 
 the light once more, little Mr. Tom N. Oddy 
 gave vent to his feelings by saying: 
 
 "Confound that" lamp!" 
 
 "Why? Does it smoke?" she asked, with 
 gentle solicitude in both her look and tone. 
 
 "No," he said; "but if it had not been lit, 
 the car would have been dark in the tunnel, 
 and then " 
 
 "Then, what?"
 
 64 SEVEN SMILES 
 
 "Well, one is so much bolder in the dark," 
 he replied, with Machiavellian evasiveness. 
 
 "Don't you think you are bold enough in 
 the light?" she asked, with captivating arch- 
 ness. 
 
 "Sometimes," he answered. 
 
 There was a short silence, during which lit- 
 tle Mr. Tom N. Oddy brought his diamond 
 ring into better view, and attempted to find 
 out whether her feet were on the floor or on 
 the restbar. 
 
 "That is the only tunnel on this part of the 
 road, is it not?" she asked. 
 
 Little Mr. Tom N. Oddy gave a start. 
 "No, indeed," he said, "there are three more 
 between this and San Kafael." 
 
 She sat quiet again, looking pensively at 
 her folded hands. 
 
 "Is your sword-stick hollow?" she asked, 
 with curious interest, considering the apparent 
 irrelevancy of the question. 
 
 "Stick hollow?" he repeated; "yes, it's a 
 Chinese bamboo; that is, with the joints bored 
 out. Do you wish to examine it?" 
 
 "No," she answered, with a smile like a 
 sunbeam; "only I was thinking that if the 
 ferule, or whatever you call that brass thimble- 
 thing at the end of the stick, were cut off and 
 the sword removed, it would make a splendid 
 blowpipe." 
 
 "Well, well," he stammered confusedly, 
 "what in the world do I want of a blowpipe?" 
 
 "Oh, nothing, I suppose," she answered, 
 with another flash of smile, "only I was think 
 ing, also, that if any one had such a blowpipe
 
 AND A FEW FIBS. 65 
 
 it would just about reach from here to that 
 lamp, and that a little, well-directed puff 
 would blow it out without any one being the 
 wiser." 
 
 ''Oh, you angel," said little Mr. Tom N. 
 Oddy, and, with two motions, he whipped out 
 the sharp sword-blade and slashed off the 
 ferule. 
 
 As he did so there came another warning 
 toot from the engine and a little smothered 
 cry from his side. 
 
 "Why, here's another tunnel," she cried. 
 
 Then, in the gathering darkness, little Mr. 
 Tom N. Oddy cunningly laid the bamboo tube 
 along the side of the car until the further 
 end was just under the lamp-glass, set his 
 mouth to the near end, gave a sharp puff, and 
 presto! the car was in what is sometimes 
 known as Egyptian darkness. There was a 
 chorus of cries and smacking sounds from all 
 over the car as the light went out, but little 
 Mr. Tom N. Oddy minded none of these, but 
 turned in a tremble of excitement to snatch 
 his reward from his captivating companion. 
 
 As he flung out his arms to make a prisoner 
 of the dainty beauty at his side, they were 
 seized by two hands of iron, and then little 
 Mr. .Tom N. Oddy felt himself irresistibly 
 drawn down and doubled up over two un- 
 doubtedly male knees. Then one of those 
 iron hands was swiftly drawn away, and, before 
 Jittle Mr. Tom N. Oddy knew what was hap- 
 pening, he was treated to a castigation of that 
 basic order which vigorous mothers sometimes
 
 66 
 
 SEVEN SMILES 
 
 administer to rebellious 
 sons. Then he was lifted 
 up as suddenly as he had 
 been drawn down and 
 planted, with a jerk, in his 
 corner. Before he had re- 
 covered his breath the train 
 was rushing into the day- 
 light once more, and there, 
 sitting quietly at his side 
 and reading his paper, was 
 the stalwart young man of 
 the opposite seat. 
 
 "How dare " little 
 Mr. Tom N. Oddy began, 
 with a fierce pant, when 
 the young man turned 
 slowly on him and said, in 
 a ponderous, bass voice: 
 
 "Please accept my 
 thanks for your kind at- 
 tentions to my wife." 
 
 "Your wife!" gasped 
 little Mr. Tom N. Oddy, 
 and, glancing wildly across 
 the aisle, he saw the lovely 
 creature sitting demurely 
 in the young man's seat. 
 Demurely oirly for a mo- 
 ment, however, for then a 
 merry, wicked light sprang 
 into those ravishing eyes, 
 and 
 
 THE LADY SMILED.
 
 THE MAIDEN SMILED.
 
 THE MAIDEN SMILED. 
 
 HE certainly used most remarkable gestures, 
 and used them with a freedom that very much 
 surprised young Mr. Leonard, until that 
 youth happened to haltingly think that a 
 Chinaman was an Oriental and that the 
 Orientals are born gesture-makers. 
 
 He was unusually tall for a Chinaman, and 
 unusually gaunt, too, and as he threw up his 
 long arms to emphasize some particular state- 
 ment, the heavy jade bangles slipped down 
 over his elbows; while, when he lowered his 
 arms again, he had to spread out his fingers 
 to keep the stone bracelets from falling to the 
 floor. Now he would poise his left hand, 
 palm up, in the air, and would dart his right 
 hand in and out of this, the fingers all 
 bunched to a point, as though it were some 
 bird of prey swooping down on its quarry. 
 At another time he would drop both these 
 ner\ious hands to the furthest limits of arms'- 
 reach, scoop up an invisible something, and 
 then, lifting this head-high, would scatter it 
 to the four winds, with a tornado motion of 
 body and limbs that was very effective. 
 
 The play of his facial features was quite as 
 remarkable. Like so many of his countrymen,
 
 ?0 SEVEN SMILES 
 
 he was deeply pitted with smallpox, but, un- 
 like most of his countrymen, his eyes were 
 large, though obliquely set, and full of fire. 
 His neck was long and pliant as a snake, and 
 indeed, when he threw back his head, opened 
 his mouth until the corners ran up to the 
 cheek bones, and shot out a flash of light from 
 under his half-shut lids, there was something 
 quite ophidian in his appearance. 
 
 That young Mr. Leonard in his little sur- 
 reptitious ramble through Chinatown was at 
 first attracted by the gestures and Boanergian 
 voice of the Chinaman, there is no doubt, but 
 after a few moments had passed his attention 
 was drawn to another of the group of which 
 the orator was the center. There were six of 
 them in this group, sprawled about the little 
 gloomy store, in which nothing particular 
 seemed to be sold. Five of them were men 
 and the sixth was a woman, or girl, or 
 child, young Mr. Leonard could not exactly 
 say which. Anyway, whatever her age may 
 have been, she was as pretty as a peach or 
 rather as a nectarine, for, like that fruit, she 
 was small and round and plump and juicy; 
 like it, her skin was smooth and yellowish- 
 brown, with red splashes here and there; and 
 she still like the fruit no doubt looked to be 
 a good deal better than she really was. Her 
 hair was starched out on each side of her head 
 like a black butterfly's wings, and was twisted 
 into a bar behind that looked like the handle 
 of a black teapot. This general gloominess 
 of headgear was, however, relieved by sundry
 
 AND A FEW FIBS. 71 
 
 little paper chrysanthemums stuck here and 
 there, while in the thickness of the teapot 
 handle there were two gold skewers, set up 
 like a St. Andrew's cross. Her hair was 
 drawn back in front from a low but intelligent 
 forehead, underneath which glittered a pair 
 of mischievous eyes. The nose was a snub, 
 the mouth was quite pretty and provoking, 
 and chin and cheeks and neck were smooth 
 and round. Down below her trousers dark 
 purple, like her blouse showed two plump 
 ankles covered with fine white socks; and 
 beneath these were two tiny feet naturally 
 tiny incased in shoes of light apple-green, 
 with high, white soles running down to a 
 point from toe and heel like the lines of a 
 sampan. 
 
 The trick of finding out that a young man 
 is looking at her is not confined to the Cau- 
 casian girl, and two minutes had not passed 
 before little Quang Loo began to preen and 
 perk. 
 
 She accepted a conical cigarette which one 
 of the Chinamen offered her, throwing out a 
 deprecatory glance at young Mr. Leonard 
 as she did so, as though to ask excuse for 
 the mannish custom, and pulled back her 
 loose sleeves there seemed to be five or six of 
 them showing a dimpled arm that was alto- 
 gether feminine. There followed coy looks in 
 the shelter of a big red-silk handkerchief; 
 roguish smiles half-hidden by a veil of very 
 queer-smelling tobacco smoke, until, almost 
 before he knew it, young Mr. Leonard was
 
 72 SEVEN SMILES 
 
 deep in the midst of a first-class flirtation: 
 with a third-class heathen. 
 
 The experience was one that made young 
 Mr. Leonard tingle clear down to the tips of 
 his brilliant yellow gloves and that made him 
 flush so that his spectacles actually got dewy. 
 It was the first time he had ever done such a 
 thing, and he trembled with a delicious fever 
 of joyful fright to think of what he would do 
 if ever his mamma should find out what he 
 was about. 
 
 He and his mamma were Boston peo- 
 ple, quite rich and undoubtedly superior. 
 She was a widow and this was her only son, 
 her "mother's boy." He had been brought up 
 like a pet lamb, and, like that festive young 
 creature, was very innocent and very weak 
 and he looked it. Though now nearly twenty, 
 his mamma still called him Baby, and so did 
 nearly everybody else, for the matter of that. 
 She would have kept him in knickerbockers if 
 she could possibly have done so, but even 
 young Mr. Leonard's mild spirit rebelled at 
 this and he insisted on clothing his flaccid 
 little self in the rig of the ultra-angloma- 
 niacs. 
 
 On those rare occasions on which mamma 
 allowed him to stray from under her maternal 
 eye, her parting injunction invariably was, 
 "Now Baby, be sure you don't get into mis- 
 chief," and here he was getting into the very 
 worst description of that article. 
 
 He had passed the handkerchief phase and 
 had arrived at that desperate state where he
 
 AND A FEW FIBS. 73 
 
 was slyly feeling in his pocket for a visiting 
 curd, when in one of the gestureful China- 
 man's comprehensive sweeps of arms and 
 vision, the Celestial saw what was going on. 
 For a moment his hands hung suspended, 
 then they dropped with a thwack on two bony 
 knees, while he shot out a few gutturals to 
 his companions. These looked quickly and 
 sharply out of the little store- window and up 
 and down the street, and then, at some more 
 gutturals from the tall Chinaman, they slipped 
 out and closed swiftly around the startled 
 youth. Before he knew what had happened, 
 young Mr. Leonard found himself inside the 
 store, sitting down beside the little Chinese 
 girl much closer than he had ever dared to 
 imagine, and the six Chinamen so thickly 
 grouped about him that he was hidden behind 
 them as by a wall a little wall of China, in 
 fact. With childlike confidence and affec- 
 tion the maiden put her right arm around his 
 waist and kept it there with a vigor that was 
 quite surprising, while she brought her left 
 hand, holding the big, red-silk handkerchief, 
 so closely up to young Mr. Leonard's mouth 
 that he could only talk in a sort of mumbled 
 undertone. Immediately in front of him 
 towered the tall Chinaman, and in the China- 
 man's hand was a huge revolver. 
 
 "You wan' buy that lill gel?" inquired this 
 monster, working the revolver around until 
 its muzzle looked like a revolving disk in an 
 experiment in hypnotism.
 
 74 SEVEN SMILES 
 
 "Good gwacious, no!" young Mr. Leonard 
 was understood to stammer. 
 
 "Wha' for then you tly mashee, heh?" 
 
 "Good gwacious!" stammered the youth 
 again, and there stuck, feeling yery much as 
 if he would like to cry. 
 
 "Lookee heah, you dam fellah/' said the 
 Chinaman, throwing open his month as 
 though he was going to swallow his victim; 
 "Me, Qnong Ah Wok, baddest highbindeh 
 San Flancisco. Sixteen man-boy like you" 
 ticking them off on his fingers with the pistol- 
 barrel "I kill already this week. Now I kill 
 you, too, 'less you buy this lill gel or give me 
 hund'ed dollah." 
 
 "I haven't got as much money with me," 
 moaned young Mr. Leonard. 
 
 "How much you got?" persisted Ah Wok. 
 
 "Only about fifty-three dollars and some 
 odd cents, don't-cber-know," chattered the 
 victim behind the red-silk handkerchief. 
 
 "Lemme have all you got dam quick," 
 said the terrible Ah Wok, playfully poking the 
 revolver in his victim's vest-pocket. 
 
 Young Mr. Leonard lost no time in hand- 
 ing over his coin and bills, though the opera- 
 tion left his purse as limp as his legs. 
 
 "Now, then," said Ah Wok, with a com- 
 bined movement of the head, body, and arms 
 that made him look like a gigantic crane 
 about to take flight "now, then, young fel- 
 lah, yon skippee heap fi-fi; and, lookee heah, 
 yon no say no word any one, or I come we 
 all come kill yon in your lill bed."
 
 AND A FEW FIBS. 75 
 
 Young Mr. Leonard wanted no further per- 
 mission, and the encircling arm of the maiden 
 being released, he tottered out and did not stop 
 tottering until he had reached the hotel. 
 There he half-frightened mamma to death by 
 his ghastliness, but he attributed it to "climb- 
 ing so many bweastly hills," and after lying 
 down for an hour or two, with a bottle of 
 smelling salts to his nose, he was again able to 
 stand on his feet and face the wicked world. 
 
 The next day was Sunday, and young Mr. 
 Leonard and his mamma went to the First 
 Bapterian Church, that being the sect of 
 which the Leonards had always been strong 
 supporters. Mrs. Leonard's devotions were 
 considerably interfered with by the haunting 
 suspicion that she knew the bonnet in front 
 of her, and sure enough when its wearer hap- 
 pened to turn round to see the singers, who 
 should it be but Mrs. Todhunter, also of 
 Boston. 
 
 "Stay after service, my dear," whispered 
 Mrs. Todhunter, during one of the hymns; 
 "we're going to have a treat converted 
 Chinese." 
 
 All the missionary zeal of the New Eng- 
 land_er was stirred at this hint, and they stayed. 
 The first part in the appendix to the service 
 was a Chinese Sunday-school, and young Mr. 
 Leonard did not seem to be half as charmed 
 by the services as his mother had expected 
 him to be; indeed, it was all he could do to
 
 76 SEVEN SMILES 
 
 keep from sneaking out of the pew, or lying 
 down in it under the plea of being poorly. 
 
 He heard the devout heathen singing some 
 horrible travesty of dear old "Rousseau's 
 Dream" with all the vigor and tunefulness of 
 a blacksmith's bellows, and then he heard a 
 resonant, crackly voice, at sound of which his 
 heart melted like wax within him. He 
 glanced fearfully up. There was no mistak- 
 ing that ophidian head and those free gestures 
 it was Quong Ah Wok, the prince of high- 
 binders. 
 
 He was telling the story of his conversion, 
 of his being brought out of the darkness and 
 confusion of ancient Confucianism into the 
 perfect clearness of new Bapterianism, and 
 telling it with a redundancy of picturesque 
 action which young Mr. Leonard knew only 
 too well. 
 
 "And now me cl-lean!" cried the convert 
 with a fountain-like movement of the hands 
 from the chest upward and outward; "all 
 same cl-lean like snow, while you, pool sinnels, 
 black like Melican man's shoe. Come be 
 clean, come be white, then all go heaven, sing y 
 sing, sing fo-levah amen." 
 
 To say that young Mr. Leonard was amazed 
 is but faintly to express his condition. He 
 was simply stupefied, and it was in this stupor 
 that he somehow knew his mamma was taking 
 him by the arm and leading him up to the 
 pulpit platform to shake hands with the con- 
 verted Ah Wok. 
 
 "So charmed/' he heard his mamma say,
 
 AND A FEW FIBS. 
 
 77 
 
 and then he felt his hand 
 seized in a bony paw; a few 
 quick, low gutturals Avere 
 spoken, and then there was a 
 thin giggle. 
 
 He looked up perforce, 
 and there, sitting in sweet 
 demureness, was the little 
 Chinese maiden. 
 
 "This my niece, also one 
 Clistian gel," said Ah Wok, 
 with a fearful working of his 
 mobile jaws and lowering of 
 his lids; "you please shake 
 hands wif lill Clistian gel." 
 
 Young Mr. Leonard put 
 out a moist, quivering hand 
 and felt it gently tickled in 
 the palm. He ventured a 
 timid glance from the corner 
 of his eyes and met one as 
 full of mischief as is a mon- 
 key. He thought of Celes- 
 tial guile, of his fifty-three 
 dollars, and sighed. 
 
 AND THE MAIDEN SMILED.
 
 *AWB HB HAS IT UNDER ADVISEMENT YET." Page 122.
 
 A FEW FIBS.
 
 THE PKOTOPLASMIC MISADVENTUKE 
 OF HANS JOKGENSEN. 
 
 IN September, 1879, the schooner White 
 Wave sailed from San Francisco, bound for 
 the North Pacific, there to shoot sea otter 
 and seals. The souls on board were few, con- 
 sisting only of the captain, Richard Williams 
 by name and an Englishman by birth, although 
 he had become a naturalized citizen of the 
 United States, three sailors, a Chinese cook 
 and two sharpshooters, one named Seth Mitch- 
 ell, and a native of Connecticut, and the 
 other called Hans Jorgensen, a Swede. The 
 White Wave was built to stand weather, and 
 was as taut a craft as ever came off the New 
 Haven stocks, but'she had occasionally to own 
 that the elements were her superior. 
 
 The up trip was made in good time, and 
 the fishing, or rather sporting, grounds off the 
 Island of St. George were reached without even 
 encountering a rough day. About the last 
 of the month, however, a furious gale sprang 
 up-suddenly from the southwest and drove the 
 schooner across to within a few leagues of 
 the Aleutian Islands. 
 
 According to the captain's logbook, it ap- 
 pears that on the 28th of September, the White 
 Wave being then in or about 52 degrees north 
 latitude and 168 degrees west longitude, he
 
 82 SEVEN SMILES 
 
 sent a boat on shore to one of the islands, which 
 was quite new to him, to look for water, the 
 boat's crew consisting of two sailors and Hans 
 Jorgensen. 
 
 While on shore the Swede, who had his rifle 
 with him, started in chase of a fox. The gale 
 was now blowing due west, and, as the captain 
 found himself drifting, he made urgent signals 
 for the return of the boat. Jorgensen had not 
 come back, and the sailors, after deliberation, 
 rowed to the schooner with some difficulty, to 
 acquaint Captain Williams of the fact. The 
 captain was in much doubt what to do, when 
 the wind settled the matter by rising in sud- 
 den fury and driving the schooner still further 
 westward. 
 
 Four days passed before Captain Williams 
 was enabled to return to the landing where 
 Jorgensen had been left, and it was with much 
 pleasure that the Swede was found alive and 
 well, although changed in - appearance to an 
 extraordinary degree. 
 
 Jorgensen had a marvelous story to tell. 
 The fox had escaped notwithstanding the 
 Swede's marksmanship, but so exciting was 
 the chase that he must have wandered miles 
 in pursuit before he gave up the bushy-tailed 
 game and thought of returning to the boat. 
 The country was of the most bleak and deso- 
 late description. Chaotic masses of volcanic 
 rocks lay around in confusion, and not a shrub 
 or tree of any description broke the desola- 
 tion. Here and there were crevasses, or rents 
 in the earth, at the dark bottoms of which
 
 AND A FEW FIBS. 83 
 
 small but rapid streams worked a tortuous 
 course along their rocky beds, and beside these 
 streams there grew huge masses of lichen, such 
 as Jorgensen had never seen before. From 
 other ravines there arose heavy volumes of 
 steam, which impregnated the air with a sul- 
 phurous smell. Jorgensen was a man of 
 limited imagination though a good shot, yet 
 so impressed was he with the horrible and 
 dismal character of his surroundings that he 
 declared it seemed to him as if he were look- 
 ing upon a piece of the earth as it must have 
 been before ever a living creature put foot 
 thereon. Progress even of matter had not 
 visited this spot, which retained the ghastly 
 desolation of the pre-Adamite world. 
 
 It was not surprising that among the irregu- 
 larities of such a strange and broken country 
 he should find some difficulty in keeping his 
 way, for, though by climbing to the height of 
 some escarpment he was enabled to see the sea, 
 almost as soon as he descended from his look- 
 out he became lost in a maze of bowlder- 
 strewn cafions. When at length he reached 
 the shore, struggling against the gale that 
 shrieked over both land and sea, he saw the 
 White Wave, with shortened sail, flying to 
 the. westward. He took in the situation at 
 once, and was confident that Captain Williams 
 would return for him as soon as the storm 
 abated. 
 
 There was nothing to do but wait; and 
 when, after a supperless night's camping out, 
 he awoke to find no sign of the schooner, and
 
 84 SEVEN SMILES 
 
 a gnawing at his stomach, it became necessary 
 to look for something to eat. The search on 
 the near land was entirely fruitless, and he 
 did not dare to go far from the shore for fear 
 of missing the schooner. Shore and sea 
 seemed alike unproductive, in this desolate 
 region, and Jorgensen was beginning to fear 
 death by starvation when chance provided 
 him with food. Weakly crawling to the sum- 
 mit of an eminence which rose about a half- 
 mile in shore, and which he had been accus- 
 tomed to use as a lookout, he was overcome 
 with something like a fainting fit, and fell 
 bacKward, rolling down a gulch which lay on 
 the land side. When he recovered conscious- 
 ness he found that the stock of his rifle, of 
 which he had mechanically retained hold, had 
 struck against one of a number of pebbly-look- 
 ing objects which lay around, and in so strik- 
 ing had broken it. The broken object lay 
 within a few inches of Jorgensen's head, and 
 he could see that the pebble was in reality but 
 a slight shell of lime or sulphur or something 
 he was not geologist enough to say what 
 covering a quantity of jelly. It looked like 
 Jelly, anyhow, to the famished man, and rais- 
 ing himself on his hands and knees he took up 
 a fragment of the broken object and examined 
 it closely. This closer inspection of the con- 
 tents of the limeshell showed the jelly to be 
 cf the consistency of melted glue, to be of a 
 light rose color, and to be possessed of a. rather 
 acrid smell. 
 
 What surprised Jorgeuson was, to notice
 
 AND A PEW FIBS. 85 
 
 that although at first sight the jelly looked 
 to be a plain, uniform body, the substance 
 was in reality composed of an infinity of 
 minute cells, like, he thought, the roe of a 
 fish, while throughout its body stretched a 
 number of ligaments like the softest floss silk. 
 The Swede touched the gelatinous matter 
 with his finger, took up a small quantity, put 
 it first to his nose, then to his mouth, and, 
 preferring the chances of succor or death by 
 starvation to the possibilities of death by 
 poisoning, very gingerly applied the tip of 
 his tongue .to the jelly. It had a by no means 
 pleasant taste, and what Jorgensen swallowed 
 would, he imagined, not have killed a cat. 
 Throwing the half-shell and its contents aside, 
 with an expression and splutter of disgust, 
 Jorgensen climbed back to his post to watch 
 for the White Wave and life. 
 
 Some hours were passed in thus waiting, 
 when overcome by weakness he fell into a 
 deep sleep, from which he was awakened by a 
 sensation which, he said, was almost precisely 
 like that which he had experienced as a boy 
 when resuscitated after having been pulled 
 out more than half-drowned from one of his 
 native fjords. The acute tingling sensation 
 was once more felt, and it seemed as though 
 the pains of a new life were upon him. What 
 Astonished him was to find that when the 
 tinglings had passed away the hunger-cravings 
 had entirely gone; he felt strong and re- 
 freshed. 
 
 At first he was inclined to be suspicious of
 
 86 SEVEN SMILES 
 
 this release of pain and new vigor, thinking it 
 to be but the glow of the spark before extinc- 
 tion; but when he found himself enabled to 
 walk miles without fatigue, and was troubled 
 with no more inconvenience from his long 
 fast, he became convinced that his hunger had 
 been appeased. In searching for the cause 
 he naturally could but think of the gelati- 
 nous matter which he had tasted. To imagine, 
 however, that the infinitesimal quantity of 
 this remarkable substance, if indeed he had 
 swallowed any at all, could have produced such 
 astonishing results, seemed highly absurd. 
 
 The next day, after having wandered up 
 and down the bleak country and along the 
 desolate shore without any symptoms of weari- 
 ness, he again visited the gulch where he had 
 found the glutinous deposit. The supposed 
 pebble which had been broken in his fall lay 
 there as he had left it, but the contents had 
 altered in condition and were now but a dry, 
 viscid film. Jorgensen was shrewd enough to 
 put this change down as due to the action of 
 the air, and saw that if he wished to experi- 
 ment he would have to do so with a freshly 
 broken pebble. Selecting one of the chalk- 
 looking stones, he carefully broke the crust 
 and found that it also contained a small 
 quantity of the rose-tinted jelly of which he 
 was in search. With characteristic caution, he 
 again but touched his tongue to the matter, 
 and then gathered the remaining pebbles to- 
 gether and placed them under the projecting 
 ledge for safe keeping.
 
 AND A FEW FIBS. 87 
 
 The results of the second taste were equally 
 as wonderful as those which had attended 
 the first essay. Again came a deep sleep, out 
 of which he was awakened by the intense 
 tingling in every nerve of his body. This ex- 
 quisite pain having passed, Jorgensen lay 
 where he had slept, as though in a half -dream, 
 thinking idly of his adventure. He felt no 
 hunger, but rather a state of mental and 
 bodily ease. The only explanation that he 
 could arrive at concerning the mysterious food 
 of which he had partaken was that it must 
 have been something prepared by the native 
 Indians for sustenance during long journeys, 
 and that he had accidentally discovered either 
 a cache of such material or a store of it which 
 had been overlooked. 
 
 But a new surprise was awaiting him, for 
 when he rose to shake the sleep from his limbs 
 what was his astonishment to find his clothes 
 so tight upon him that he moved with diffi- 
 culty in them. His great sea-boots seemed 
 several sizes too small, and the sleeves of his 
 knitted cardigan jacket were almost up to his 
 ilbows. Euefully contemplating this shrink- 
 age of what he had hitherto considered good 
 material, he stooped down to pick up his rifle, 
 when he was thunderstruck to find that it too 
 had shrunk. At any rate his good Henry, 
 which, before he had gone to sleep, reached 
 just up to his armpit, was now scarcely chest 
 high. Moreover, it seemed as light in his 
 hands as a feather. 
 
 Jorgensen was bewildered, and for a mo-
 
 88 SEVEN SMILES 
 
 ment imagined himself crazy. Then the old 
 Norse superstition took hold of him and he 
 believed himself bewitched. Taking out his 
 jackknife to cut a few holes in his too snugly 
 fitting shoes, he found it to lie in his hand 
 like a lady's penknife. Then he knew that 
 the metal and fabric had not dwarfed, but 
 that he himself had stretched and grown 
 under the influence of the wonderful food. 
 His physical strength had kept pace with his 
 increased bulk, and he amused himself, as 
 he confessed, by breaking off large fragments 
 of rock and hurling them into the sea. It was 
 while engaged in this Cyclopean pastime that 
 he saw the White Wave bearing down the 
 coast and signaling with the little brass piece 
 she carried. Jorgensen replied with his rifle 
 and then hastily ran to where the peculiar 
 pebbles lay, loaded his pockets with them and 
 was back on the beach in time to direct the 
 boat's course to where he stood. 
 
 I pass over the astonishment of his ship- 
 mates at his extraordinary appearance and at 
 the story of Jorgensen, but quote a few of the 
 captain's words, because they are brief and to 
 the point: "When Jorgensen went on shore," 
 said Captain Williams, in conversation with 
 the writer, "he was a short, spare man, of 
 about five feet seven, with a bald head, a thin, 
 straw-colored mustache, and looked all of his 
 age, which he said was forty-seven. When 
 he cam.e on board lie was bloated or swollen or 
 something so much that he looked to be about 
 six feet high; was grovved so stout that he had
 
 AND A FEW FIBS. 89 
 
 burst all his clothes; had a new crop of fluffy 
 hair over his face and head, and had aged 
 about ten years. Why, sir, his own mother 
 wouldn't ha' knowed him, and I weren't sur- 
 prised that his mates thought they had struck 
 the wrong man when they see that object on 
 the beach." Jorgensen told his story, which 
 Captain Williams at first utterly discredited, 
 but which he afterward wrote out in full, at- 
 testing its genuineness by the line that 
 
 "The above was as near as we could reckilect 
 the statement made by the said Hans Jorgen- 
 sen before us as witnesses thereto." 
 
 RICHARD WILLIAMS, 
 (Master of schooner White Wave). 
 SETH MITCHELL, 
 
 (Sharpshooter). 
 
 It is from this statement that the above 
 narrative has been taken; indeed, except in 
 the matter of some necessary corrections of 
 spelling and alterations of expression, there is 
 no material difference between the two. It 
 was, in fact, at Captain Williams' request that 
 his story has been, as he styles it, "iixed up." 
 
 It is with his permission, however, that the 
 following extract .from the log of the White 
 Wave is literally transcribed: 
 
 "October 3, 1879. Latitude 57 degrees 47 
 minutes north; longitude 144 degrees 10 
 minutes west. Jorgensen is dead and I don't 
 know what to make of it. Ever since he came
 
 90 SEVEN SMILES 
 
 aboard from the island his helth have been 
 good, but the remarkable swellin have gone 
 on until yesterday we was obliged to bring 
 him up on deck, as he had growed so that I 
 was afeared we should not be able to get him 
 through the companionway. I was sitting 
 beside him when he died, and had just asked 
 him, How do you feel now? He said all over 
 pins and needles like. I said, No pain be- 
 sides? He said no, but I feel like as if every- 
 thing was a stretching and growing inside of 
 me. Guess I'm poisoned. I said I guess so, 
 too. Just then I hear a crack inside of him, 
 then another and another, three in all. He 
 clapped his hands to his heart, his chest and 
 his stumik, give one grone and died. For 
 curiosity I measured him and find he is six 
 feet eight inches long and big in proportion. 
 
 ''October 4, 1879. Latitude 54 degrees 25 
 minutes north; longitude 144 degrees 50 min- 
 utes west. Have just buried poor Jorgensen. 
 When I wont down to pick up his kit I found 
 in his bunk as many as a dozen, I should think, 
 of them dam stones, or whatever they be, 
 which he had brought on board with him from 
 the island. Three was cracked open, and I 
 have no doubt that he had eaten some more 
 of the gelly poisin, which he must have got a 
 taste for, and which had brought on the swell- 
 ing that killed him. I pitched a handful of 
 the cussed things overboard, and was about to 
 send them all to the fishes when the idee sud- 
 dinly struck me that I would keep part of a 
 broken one and send it to Mr. Ferris. Alto-
 
 AND A FEW FIBS. 91 
 
 gether it's the rummiest case I ever came 
 across. " 
 
 This Mr. Ferris, the captain has explained, 
 was the son of the owner of the property in 
 England on which he (Captain Williams) had 
 been born and was a gentleman who had given 
 himself up to science and philosophy. Cap- 
 tain Williams had already sent him some queer 
 odds and ends gathered in his various travels, 
 and considered that a fragment of the strange 
 articles which had played such an important 
 part in poor Hans Jorgensen's career would 
 be acceptable. (Mr. Ferris will doubtless be 
 recognized as the celebrated Professor Michael 
 Ferris, F.R.S., author of "The First Princi- 
 ples of the Cell Theory," and one of TyndalFs 
 most promising disciples.) 
 
 The fragment was carefully packed and sent 
 to Professor Ferris, who, in acknowledging its 
 receipt, wrote the following letter, which I 
 am permitted to publish: 
 
 "142 PARK Row, CHELTENHAM, ) 
 January 22, 1880. j 
 
 "My DEAR WILLIAMS: The box with its 
 contents came to hand safely enough; but 
 what an unsatisfactory fellow you are! You 
 should have written' me every detail concern- 
 ing your late friend Jorgensen's adventure, 
 described his appearance minutely at the time 
 of his death and told me the facts concerning 
 the affair, even if it had kept you back a 
 whole season. Above all, you should have
 
 92 SEVEN SMILES 
 
 sent me all those precious deposits instead of 
 pitching them like a heathen into the sea. 
 
 "I don't know if you are aware of it, Captain 
 Williams, but when you threw those 'cussed 
 stones' into the Alaska Sea you threw away 
 my chance of becoming immortal. Jn re- 
 venge I have a great mind to tell you, in the 
 hardest language I can think of, what those 
 'cussed stones' contain. Are you aware, sir, 
 that they had been lying in that desert Aleu- 
 tian isle for more thousands of years than you 
 could ever dream of? Do you know, sir, that 
 they contained the elements of life from 
 which, cycles of years before Adam was born, 
 the first living things sprung into existence? 
 
 "Do you know, sir, that if it had not been 
 for some volcanic action whereby those masses 
 of jelly were prisoned up in their silicious shell, 
 from them would have sprung the beginnings 
 of a life which, going on from stage to stage, 
 from embryo to perfection, might in time 
 have peopled the world? 
 
 "Do you know, Captain Williams, that there 
 lay in those 'cussed stones' a collection of 
 energies of the vital order in which forces 
 would have become forms, going on inces- 
 santly producing and multiplying new forces 
 and new forms, and that I and my masters 
 would have given our heads to have been able 
 to make the discovery which brought Jorgen- 
 sen to his death? 
 
 "Do you know what Jorgensen discovered, 
 Captain Williams? He discovered the begin- 
 ning of cosmic energies, he discovered a price-
 
 AND A FEW FIBS. 93 
 
 less microcosm; it was Protoplasm that he 
 tasted, and he tasted enough to stock a 
 province, with anything from a tadpole to a 
 megaceros. 
 
 "It is no wonder, I think, that Jorgensen 
 died, and it is no wonder either that I sign 
 myself 
 
 "Your grievously disappointed friend, 
 "MICHAEL FEKKIS."
 
 DOWN TO THE MEDULLA. 
 
 ON September 5, 1878, the town of Ario, 
 in Peru, was startled by the commission of a 
 most dastardly murder. Francisco Hansa, in 
 a fit of jealous anger, brutally decapitated his 
 sweetheart with an ax. He was tried and 
 sentenced to be executed by the garrote, when 
 Dr. Manuel Pedro Deranogozo, formerly a 
 professor of anatomy in the University of 
 Lima, Pern, who was then, as he had been for 
 years, engaged in his studies on the nerve 
 centers, made a strange application to Presi- 
 dent Prado. 
 
 The application was nothing less than that, 
 as the murderer Hansa had forfeited his life, 
 instead of being executed he should be given 
 up to the applicant, who intended to make 
 him the subject of certain experiments. The 
 result of these experiments, Dr. Deranogozc 
 said, might possibly prove fatal to the subject > 
 in which case he would only suffer the just 
 penalty of his crime, while the researches 
 would positively be valuable as a contribution 
 to a branch of medical science which, from the 
 very force of circumstances, could be but very 
 imperfectly entered into, unless some such 
 exceptional opportunity as this were availed of. 
 
 President Prado took the matter under con- 
 sideration, and the result was that, as the
 
 AND A FEW FIBS. 95 
 
 document of custody read "in the interest of 
 science, the body of the said Francisco Ilansa 
 was delivered up to Dr. Deranogozo, to be 
 by him used as he saw fit." A private execu- 
 tion was announced, and so far as the Peruvian 
 public knew Hansa suffered capital punish' 
 ment January 3, 1879. 
 
 The very morning on which Deranogozo be- 
 came the custodian of the prisoner, he com- 
 menced his researches. 
 
 "The night before the date of the supposed 
 execution," said the doctor when relating his 
 story to the writer, on the eve of his departure 
 for the East, en route to Europe, "I had 
 caused a strong opiate to be administered to 
 Hansa, so that when the two officers of the 
 law laid their burden on the table of my dis- 
 secting-room, it was inert and senseless. The 
 subject was a huge muscular man of about 
 twenty-five years of age, with a strong, desper- 
 ate, but not normally evil face. I must own," 
 avowed the doctor, "that I felt nervous when I 
 considered what the results might be if such a 
 character were brought to consciousness by 
 my Avork, and if he should struggle with me 
 for his life and liberty. 
 
 "I may as well tell you here that I had for 
 aim, to prove at onco, definitely and forever, 
 either that a man could or could not live after 
 the removal of his brain. 
 
 "With the cases in which this removal had 
 been partially and brutally effected by accident 
 or on the battlefield, I was, of course, ac- 
 quainted; but I had never considered that
 
 96 SEVEN SMILES 
 
 these cases were in the least satisfactory. 
 What I wanted done, and what for the first 
 time in the history of the world I was about to 
 do, was to carefully, scientifically and grad- 
 ually remove the human brain. You will of 
 course at once see, too, that by my experi- 
 ments the science of phrenology would be for 
 the first time legitimately tested. 
 
 "Of course I was familiar with the result of 
 the experiments made by Flourens, the Apos- 
 tle of Vivisection, and I had followed in the 
 footsteps of Louget, Onimus, Bouilland and 
 Goltz, while where Vulpiau had boldly gone I 
 had unhesitatingly marched after. Since 
 1869 I had experimented on the lower animals, 
 but even the removal of the cerebral hemi- 
 spheres of a dog did not satisfy me. I found 
 that the animals thus operated upon muti- 
 lated, if you will had in some instances re- 
 tained general sensibility and power of volun- 
 tary movement, but had lost the use of the 
 senses of sight, hearing, taste and smell. In 
 the case of other animals I found that the 
 removal of one or part of both hemispheres 
 was followed by no marked effects as regarded 
 the intelligence or instinct of the animal, but 
 that an incapability of spontaneous voluntary 
 movement was the result. 
 
 "The brain of a man was still an unexplored 
 field, for hitherto the experiments had been 
 made post mortem and had only resulted in 
 showing the possible cause of an effect pre- 
 viously visible. To be sure," continued the 
 doctor, with growing enthusiasm, "I knevy
 
 AND A FEW FIBS. 97 
 
 that a person may lose part of his brain and 
 yet not exhibit any mental deficiency or dis- 
 order. I knew, too, that there had been cases 
 indeed, one had come under my own notice 
 where one hemisphere may do the work of 
 the whole cephalic ganglion. But all this only 
 pointed to, without touching, the great point 
 at which I aimed. 
 
 "At last I was going to see whether the sup- 
 position that certain parts of the brain, bound 
 together as they are by commissional fibers, or 
 fibers ot association, have in reality separate 
 and peculiar properties and functions. I was 
 going to see what would be the result of the 
 extirpation of one or more of the brain's con- 
 volutions, leaving the others intact as far as 
 possible. I was going to carry this remark- 
 able work to an extent that no one had done 
 more than dream of. In a word, I was going 
 to try whether the brain was the center of all 
 thought and action, and prove, by actual 
 fingering of the instrument, whether the 
 whitey mass we so proudly use as a figure of 
 speech for all that is intelligent, progressive, 
 learned, even godlike, is really the sounding- 
 strings that set a world vibrating, or only the 
 keyboard which is simply an admirably con- 
 structed but purely mechanical system of 
 leverage." 
 
 The doctor's manner had grown more and 
 more excited as he was uttering the above 
 words. The eyes sparkled, the nostrils 
 dilated, and he took off his hat to rub his 
 thick crop of hair that actually seemed to
 
 98 SEVEN SMILES 
 
 bristle. Quieting down as suddenly, however, 
 lie drew a cigarette from his pocket and hav- 
 ing lighted it continued as follows: 
 
 "Looking at Hansa," he said, "who was to 
 involuntarily aid me in these immense re- 
 searches, I fancied I detected a slight tremor 
 of his eyelids. I immediately applied a strong 
 anaesthetic to his nostrils, and propping up 
 his head and shoulders, commenced to work. 
 The prisoner's hair was already cut short, or 
 cropped, as you say, and a few strokes of the 
 razor cleared out a blue-black space behind 
 the left ear and at the base of the occiput. 
 Exactly, you are right: I was about to make 
 my first move by destroying his combativeness. 
 A necessary precaution, since, as you see, lam 
 a small man, and Hansa had made for himself 
 a forbidding reputation by his ferocious con- 
 duct while under confinement. Some, I have 
 no doubt, would immediately have annihilated 
 the cerebellum, and so at one stroke have de- 
 stroyed the president of voluntary movement, 
 but I preferred to go step by step gently to 
 work. Close at hand on the operating table 
 were my silver plates and a specially con- 
 structed trepan of large size. 
 
 "Making a cross incision in the scalp that 
 overlay the protuberance that was in itself an 
 evidence of the truth of phrenology, I laid 
 back the skin and set my crown saw to work. 
 The skull was of unusual thickness, but my 
 hand seemed gifted with unaccustomed vigor, 
 and the round piece of bone was soon lifted 
 from its position. Very delicately I severed
 
 AND A FEW FIBS, 99 
 
 the tough, pearly-white dura-mater, removed 
 the web-like arachnoid, and then hesitated a 
 moment as the soft pia-mater allowed me to 
 see the brain beneath. It was but a moment's 
 hesitation, however, and separating as well as 
 I could the particular convolution of which I 
 was in search, I did my best to keep the knife 
 from the larger blood-vessels, and the next in- 
 stant Hausa was minus the first portion of his 
 brain. 
 
 "I had barely time to apply a styptic, set 
 in my silver plate and bandage his head, when 
 my subject awoke to consciousness. He sat 
 up, looked around, carried his hand to his 
 head, and then asked if he were in hell or 
 heaven. 
 
 "I had my story prepared, and told him 
 that a friend had attempted to rescue him 
 during the past night while asleep, but that 
 before he was awakened the guards had be- 
 come alarmed, and in a struggle he, Hansa, 
 had received a blow from the butt-end of a 
 carbine, which, it was thought, had been 
 fatal. 'In this belief,' I said, 'you were 
 brought to me as a dead body, and as I am 
 Dr. Deranogozo, professor of anatomy, you 
 may divine the purposes for which you are 
 here,,' I concluded pointedly. 
 
 "The poor wretch leaped from the table and 
 fell on his knees at my feet. 'And now,' said 
 he, 'now that you have discovered me to be 
 alive, you will not give me back to the execu- 
 tioner?' 
 
 " 'No,' I said assuringly, 'you are safe with
 
 1 00 SE YEN SMILES 
 
 me, but you must remain here as quietly as 
 possible for some time, until, indeed, I think 
 it safe for you to leave.' 
 
 "He would do anything, he said, and the 
 desperate, brutal man became from that time 
 one of the most docile of servants. He did 
 my bidding, it is true, as obediently as a child, 
 but even after the fever consequent on the 
 operation had subsided he displayed an almost 
 infantile irritability toward inanimate objects 
 with which he might happen to come in con- 
 tact. Every day, almost every hour, and this 
 even in my presence, he would break, tear or 
 somehow destroy whatever article he could lay 
 hands on. Keasoned with, he would express 
 both sorrow and surprise, for he declared he 
 never remembered having been so clumsy be- 
 fore, and once he stated, after having swept 
 a statuette from its place, that his action fol- 
 lowed an unaccountable and ungovernable 
 impulse. 
 
 "This set me thinking, and I soon came to 
 the conclusion that the removal of the con- 
 volution of combativeness had resulted in an 
 irritation or inflammation of its neighbor, the 
 convolution of destructiveness. It was just 
 when I came to this conclusion that my patient 
 was seized with a new freak. He became a 
 veritable magpie, and now hid as persistently 
 as he had broken. But instead of puzzling 
 me, this second trick convinced me that 1 was 
 right in my surmise, and I became sure that 
 the irritation had spread to the organ of secre- 
 tiveness. Especially was I certain of this
 
 AND A FEW FIBS. 101 
 
 when I noticed a disposition on Hansa's part 
 to conceal his intentions. Fearful as to the 
 result which this novel trait might bring about 
 if left unchecked, I resolved to eradicate the 
 cause. 
 
 "Under a trivial pretext, therefore, I made 
 him inhale chloroform, and for the second 
 time visited the interior of my patient's cra- 
 nium. This time, to make matters sure, I 
 trepanned both sides, and removed from the 
 right and left of the brain the convolutions of 
 destructiveness and secretiveness. The opera- 
 tion was successfully conducted, but although 
 I supposed my explanation to him that the 
 new smarting places on his head were due to 
 a necessary treatment of the old wound, which, 
 I informed him, had begun to look a little 
 ugly, would be sufficient, Hansa seemed to 
 listen to the explanation with a marked lack 
 of credence. Several times after that I caught 
 him eying me attentively, and it was very 
 evident that Hansa's suspicions were aroused. 
 He would not even allow me to replace the band- 
 ages on his head, and it was only when a 
 fever set in, accompanied by delirium, that I 
 was enabled to make an examination. 
 
 "I removed one of the last fixed silver 
 plates, and on inspecting the lessened brain, 
 found, as I had surmised, that the convolu- 
 tion of cautiousness, which lies directly above 
 that of secretiveness, was in a highly inflamed 
 condition. I would have remedied this at 
 once, but that I was afraid what the conse- 
 quences of further vivisection might be upon
 
 102 SEVEN SMILES 
 
 Hansa in his then weakened state. I watched 
 him carefully, in fact, I may say tenderly, 
 for eight weeks, at the end of which time he 
 was convalescent. It was not, however, until 
 three months after that I determined to push 
 my experiments further. I decided to make 
 a grand coup. 'This trepanning business,' I 
 said to myself, 'is too confined in its results; 
 it does not give me liberty of action; I must 
 have full access to the seat of my researches.' 
 Besides, I was convinced that the settling of 
 the brain to fill up the vacancies caused by re- 
 moval would stand as a difficulty in the way 
 of my proceeding further upon a phrenolog- 
 ical basis. 
 
 "So I had an ivory dome made to fit in 
 place of the crown of Hansa's skull. He was 
 reduced to insensibility, and while he was un- 
 able to move hand or foot, I plied my instru- 
 ments to such good effect that in a very few 
 minutes the whole upper portion of the 
 parietal bones was removed for an oval space 
 of four by six inches. The braiL that re- 
 mained seemed surprisingly active an* 1 healthy, 
 and I could not help a smile as I remembered 
 the words of the English poet, Shakespeare, that 
 
 The times have been 
 
 That, when the brains were out, the man wouud die, 
 And there an end. 
 
 "I smiled, too, as one by one I rp-xoved 
 what I judged to be the convolutions of self- 
 esteem, cautiousness and firmness, to tl*>nk 
 how thoroughly I was making Kansa a crea-
 
 AND A FEW FIBS. 103 
 
 ture of my own. Talk about Frankenstein 
 why, his horrible manufacture followed no 
 will but its abominable own, while here was 
 I bending some one else's work to my own 
 volition. Frankenstein modeled an image out 
 of ghastly clay and then had to flee from his 
 monument of dread; 1 was taking a statue 
 cast by a superior power and remodeling it to 
 suit my convenience, my fancy if you will. 
 
 "I shall not weary you," said the doctor on 
 the third day of our acquaintance for it must 
 not be understood that all the above informa- 
 tion was gained during a single interview "I 
 shall not weary you by relating in detail all 
 the events that attended the succession of ex- 
 periments which followed; nor shall I give 
 you the opinion that I am a pedant by indulg- 
 ing in a long, learned talk upon the various 
 psychological and mental phenomena which 
 accompanied this denudation of the home of 
 intellect. Let it be sufficient for you to know 
 that with all the ardor and heartlessness, if 
 you will of a scientist, I again and again ex- 
 plored Hansa's skull and removed organ after 
 organ of mentality, until he became a being 
 without love or hatred, without hope or de- 
 spair, without veneration or irreverence, with- 
 out imagination or ideas of any sort in fact, a 
 brainless creature, an animal without even an- 
 imal tastes, a man without a thought, a somfc- 
 thing absolutely without sense, one who from 
 being 'a little lower than the angels,' had 
 been brought down infinitely beneath the 'brute 
 beast that perisheth.' "
 
 104 SEVEN SMILES 
 
 ''And he still lived?" I asked in wonder. 
 
 "Still lived!" echoed the excited doctor, 
 lifting his right hand high up and then bring-' 
 ing it smartly down upon the open palm of his 
 left, "He still lives, sir!" 
 
 Here I saw a way to arrive at a coveted end, 
 and half-seriously, half-sarcastically, as if the 
 statement were a good joke and nothing else, 
 I professed utter disbelief in the statement. 
 Dr. Deranogozo at once took fire, and, in- 
 vited me to accompany him to his room. 
 While proceeding there the doctor explained 
 the reason of his coming to San Francisco. 
 
 "You know," he said, "of the troubles 
 which have fallen upon my unhappy country. 
 The political and then military disturbances 
 interfered seriously with my peaceful labors. 
 Pierola was no friend of mine, I did not know 
 when the cursed Chileans might follow up our 
 disasters at Pisagua, Angamos and Iquique by 
 an attack on Callao, and being a native of San 
 Francisco not this San Francisco, but our 
 San Francisco in Peru I took heed of the 
 coincidence and resolved to quit South 
 America and come here. I left Peru early in 
 December last, the interval between this and 
 that time having been spent at Punta Arena, 
 where I have a brother living." 
 
 "And do you intend remaining here?" I 
 asked. 
 
 "Oh, no," answered the doctor, 'I go East 
 that is, ive go East to-morrow morning, and 
 after staying a short time in New York, I 
 shall proceed to Europe, and there, before the
 
 AND A FEW FIBS. 105 
 
 great learned societies, exhibit my man with- 
 out brains and gain immortality." 
 
 Here the door of the room was reached, and 
 opening it the doctor ushered me in. Carefully 
 closing it behind us he led the way into an 
 inside room, the door of which was locked, 
 and at length I was in the presence of the 
 mystery. 
 
 Lying stretched on the bed was the figure of 
 a tall young man, whose closed eyes and 
 slowly heaving chest showed him to be sleep- 
 ing. So, at least, I thought, and said as much, 
 but Dr. Deranogozo only laughed and said, 
 "Oh, dear, no, that is his normal condition." 
 
 Approaching, the doctor drew down a shawl 
 which covered the lower portion of the young 
 man's body, and asking me to feel the well- 
 filled limbs, said, "You see, he is by no means 
 a skeleton." 
 
 No movement was made of the body as the 
 limbs were touched, nor had the brown, 
 slightly bearded face altered one whit in its 
 awful vacuity not of expression, but of every- 
 thing approaching it. 
 
 "And now," cried the doctor with an air of 
 triumph, "See where I, Manuel Pedro Deran- 
 nogozo, have scooped out a man's brains as a 
 monkey might scoop out a cocoanut." 
 
 With this, while I could not keep down a 
 nervous shiver, the doctor took off a black 
 velvet cap from the unconscious, witless, 
 brainless young man and displayed a glisten- 
 ing, ivory cover of oval form which fitted like 
 a lid in Hansa's skull. Lifting it by a small
 
 106 SEVEN SMILES 
 
 ebony button, the anatomist took from the 
 interior a quantity of soft lint, which he said 
 was necessary to keep out the cold, raised the 
 patient into a sitting posture and asked me to 
 "look in." 
 
 What had been the seat of fancies good and 
 bad, of faculties, aspirations and passions, was 
 now only an empty sphere, which rattled like a 
 box under the doctor's finger-nails. A silver 
 plate covered the bottom of the interior to 
 protect the medulla oblongata, but save for 
 that the skull was just like that to which it 
 had been compared a scooped-out cocoanut. 
 
 "Can he hear us?" I asked, almost in a 
 whisper, as the'cover was put back in its place. 
 
 "I am not sure," answered the doctor, al- 
 most wearily, "nor am I certain whether he 
 possesses any sensibility whatever. You see 
 the fact is that my encroachments have gone 
 so far that not only are the paths of association 
 broken up, but the centers themselves of ideas 
 also. When I feed him it is with the food 
 rolled into pellets, washed down by whatever 
 liquor is handy; but except for the conse- 
 quences of indigestion, I might just as well 
 feed him with pebbles and ammonia. I shout 
 into his ear, or I fire off a pistol close to it, 
 but I am not sure whether he hears, because 
 he makes no motion of having heard. Still 
 he may hear, yet have no idea of the impres- 
 sion caused. The question of the relation be- 
 tween sense and sensibility is here more than 
 over unsolved. I cover him with extra cloth- 
 ing, because applying a thermometer to his
 
 AND A FEW FIBS. 107 
 
 body I find it marks only 60 degrees. After 
 being covered his body heat is 79 degrees, but 
 whether he feels that warmth I cannot say. I 
 place eau-de-cologne under one nostril and 
 assafoatida under the other; but whether he 
 smells both or either I do not know. I place 
 him on his feet, and while he may walk for- 
 ward, he is just as liable to fall down back- 
 ward." 
 
 "Then, it seems to me," said I hesitatingly, 
 "that this man without brains is just as great 
 a mystery as he was with brains." 
 
 Dr. Deranogozo remained silent a moment, 
 and then said with the sad sigh of fallibility, 
 "Sometimes I almost think the mystery has 
 deepened."
 
 TAKEN UNDER ADVISEMENT. 
 
 AWAY out West a man was about to be 
 hanged. 
 
 It will not do to be very exact as to names 
 or localities, because the question is not yet 
 settled. The man's name may pass as Peter 
 Williams, which is altogether unlike what it 
 really is. As to the place, let it stand at San 
 Topaz, in Orefornia. That the man deserved 
 hanging there is no valid doubt, although his 
 excuse for the crime kept the jury out a 
 whole summer's afternoon. He had made 
 quite a little pile from the sale of an improved 
 smelting process to the Python Copper Mine 
 getting about one per cent, of what the in- 
 vention was worth and turning from the ex- 
 press office into the Silver Palace saloon, 
 which was conveniently near, he asked every- 
 body to drink. All but one man stepped for- 
 ward. That man was the victim. 
 
 "I asked him to drink like a gentleman," 
 said Williams in his defense, ''and when he 
 wouldn't even take a se-gar, I said he should 
 take something anyway, and flung the whisky 
 bottle at him." 
 
 Unfortunately, the whisky bottle was a 
 decanter weighing something less than ten 
 pounds, and it cracked the man's skull like a 
 lust season's butternut.
 
 AND A FEW FIBS. 109 
 
 What puzzled the jury was wh ether a re- 
 fusal to drink with a man celebrating his luck 
 could be construed into sufficient provocation, 
 until one juryman happened to recollect that 
 the offending, that is, the refusing party, was 
 deaf and blind. That settled it, and the ver- 
 dict of murder in the first degree was brought 
 in two minutes after. 
 
 Well, the man was about to be hanged. 
 Very quietly, too, for with excellent business 
 tact the Python Copper Mine had made this 
 its pay day. Padre Gombrillo was in the 
 murderer's cell saying a few prayers in Spanish 
 Latin, the other clergyman of San Topaz, a 
 Methodist, being a timekeeper in the smelt- 
 ing office on week days. Williams was tug- 
 ing at a new pair of red-topped boots, and 
 heriff Stephen Winslow was leaving his office 
 for the scaffold, when the postmaster's little 
 daughter brought a letter addressed to the 
 prisoner, in care of the Post Office. Winslow 
 weighed the letter in his hand for a few 
 moments, pondering whether there was 
 any use bothering Williams with correspond- 
 ence when his address would soon be the 
 dead-letter office. Being a man of much 
 originality of action, he opened the letter, and 
 as he read it his red face grew redder, and 
 when he had finished it he smote the office 
 table until the old crack in it ran an inch. 
 
 "Well, I'm jing-swizzled," he cried. And 
 well he might be, for the letter was from a 
 .firm of lawyers in Troybany, N. Y., informing
 
 110 SEVEN SMILES 
 
 Williams of the death of his uncle, J. Cannon 
 Piece. Also of the existence of a will, by the 
 terms of which he was left the old man's 
 property, valued at something near six hun- 
 dred thousand dollars, the property to go to 
 his children born in wedlock, if he had any, 
 and to his brother Matthew if he died without 
 legitimate issue. 
 
 Winslow's face grew positively purple with 
 the blood forced into his head by hard think- 
 ing. Williams a millionaire and to be hanged 
 inside of an hour! Should he comfort his last 
 few moments by informing him that he would 
 step from gold bags here on to the golden stairs 
 up there? Or would the news comfort him at 
 all, especially as it was coupled with a proviso 
 that the money in an equally few minutes 
 would belong to his brother Matthew whom 
 the sheriff remembered to have heard Williams 
 cursing with most fraternal fervor. Then 
 the sheriff thought harder than ever, until his 
 temporal veins seemed likely to burst, and 
 then, with a sudden glance at his watch, he 
 hurried out of the office and up to the con- 
 demned man's cell. 
 
 "Excuse me, padre," he said, "but I 
 wanter to speak to Williams a minnit on a 
 private matter." 
 
 The little priest bowed, took a piece of 
 chocolate from under his soutane and went 
 outside munching it. 
 
 "Williams," said the sheriff, grabbing him 
 by the arm and drawing him into the further 
 corner of the cell, "d'ye wanter live;"'
 
 AND A FEW FIBS. HI 
 
 "Say, Steve," said Williams, pulling off a 
 boot to hunt for a loose peg, ''what's the mat- 
 ter with you?" 
 
 "Look here," said the sheriff. "Did you 
 ever have an uncle in Troybany?" 
 
 "Yes," Williams replied. "My mother's 
 brother, old Cannon Piece. He is a river 
 scraper or something of that sort, and crankier 
 than a stomps spindle." 
 
 "Well, he's dead," said the sheriff, "and 
 he's left you his money." 
 
 "How much?" asked Williams calmly, hav- 
 ing found the peg. 
 
 "Over half a million." 
 
 "Hully gee!" cried Williams. "Why didn't 
 the old man die six months ago?" 
 
 "Moreover, upon your decease without legit- 
 imate issue," pursued the sheriff, with a tine 
 recollection of the lawyer's letter, "the prop- 
 erty reverses to your brother Matthew." 
 
 "To that measley skunk," said Williams 
 with many omitted parts of speech. "Gee, 
 but that's tough. Say, sheriff, can't I get a 
 reprieve for a few weeks and kinder waste the 
 property from Mat a little? I'd blow in the 
 whole town day and night for a month." 
 
 "Can't be did," said the sheriff senten- 
 tiously. 
 
 "See here, Steve Winslow, what's your 
 game?" asked Williams with a sort of yelp in 
 his voice. 
 
 The sheriff stepped quickly to the cell door, 
 looked down the gallery at the dozen or so 
 fellows squatted in the shade of the south wall,
 
 112 SE YEN SMILES 
 
 and came back with his face shortened a full 
 inch hy the compression of his mouth and 
 eyes. 
 
 "Just this, Williams," he said in the pris- 
 oner's ear. "Swar to divvy with me share 
 and share alike in your fortune; swar that 
 you hope you'll burn forever, body and soul, if 
 you break your word, and I'll fix the rope so 
 that it don't kill, and afterward we'll tote to- 
 gether to Troybany and claim the property. 
 D'ye swar?" 
 
 "Why, of course I do," said Williams. 
 ."Well, swar it then." 
 
 And Williams repeated the scorching words. 
 
 "Now," said the sheriff, "I'll go and get 
 the rope and fix the coroner. He's pretty 
 nigh drunk anyhow, and has been for a week, 
 and another horn or two with a little red 
 pepper into them will knock him so he won't 
 know your foot from your nose. And that 
 Weekly Roundup feller has got to keep out- 
 side the railing." 
 
 In less than a quarter of an hour the sheriff 
 was back with the rope. 
 
 "Doc's all right," he said, "although he'd 
 like to have choked on that last drink, and I 
 told Bill Hepburn, who's assisting me, that 
 you'd made a last dying request that the noose 
 and cap was put on in here, together with the 
 straps. Now, then, off with your coat lively. 
 I sorter promised the Python boys I'd hold 
 this thing off till after the noon bell, but I 
 guess not now."
 
 AND A FEW FIBS. 113 
 
 The details of the sheriff's ingenious plan 
 had better be omitted, except to say that they 
 included a running loop under the prisoner's 
 shoulders, and a turn of the rope from the 
 neck down, and under this, and up again to 
 the noose. Then the knot, as big as your list, 
 was slipped back of the ear, the coat replaced, 
 the cap pulled well down everywhere save in 
 front, and the straps buckled on. 
 
 "Now, Williams," said the sheriff, "I've 
 got to hear that oath once more." 
 
 "You will not, then," said Williams thickly 
 from under his cap. "It blistered my tongue 
 too badly when I said it. I'll stand to it, 
 though, and I never broke my word, fair nor 
 foul." 
 
 "All right," said the sheriff, "I'll trust 
 you. Now, Pete, I don't say that the fall 
 won't jar you some, and jar you pretty bad, 
 but it won't break nothing, and all you've 
 got to do is to play dead. Now I'll get the 
 padre and Jim." 
 
 "Hats off, gentlemen," said the sheriff, 
 when the shuffling fignre had been moved on to 
 the chalk cross that marked the center of the 
 trapdoor. 
 
 Every hat came off, although, owing to the 
 presence of a few Arequipas, there were not 
 as many hats as persons. The padre turned 
 aside and dropped his stick of chocolate into 
 the looseness of his sleeve. The sheriff 
 moved his hand, his deputy drew his knife 
 across the bolt string, and the five feet of
 
 114 SEVEN SMILES 
 
 slack rope tautened and hummed like a 
 steamer's last dock-hawser. 
 
 "Neck broken, I guess, doc," said the 
 sheriff. 
 
 "Complee fraxr of shekond sherr'lbree 
 shekond sherr'l vert'bree, Mr. Sherf'lbree 
 Mr. Sher'f," said the coroner, turning Will- 
 iams' wobbly head with spasmodic fingers. 
 
 So it was recorded. 
 
 "Shay, sher'f," said the coroner, with a 
 gravely confidential air, "if sh no claim for 
 sh' body shend round to me. Mos' stronery 
 case of 'neurism the aorta ever met with. 
 K'n feel it all 'cross s' chest, right through 
 'sh closh." 
 
 "All right, doc," said the sheriff, "I'll do 
 so." 
 
 But next morning he told the coroner that 
 late at night he had thought better of his 
 promise, as he had taken kindly to the boy 
 during his imprisonment, and so had quietly 
 removed the body out to the cemetery and 
 buried it, with his Indian constable's assist- 
 ance, in the grave that had been dug for it. 
 
 The execution took place on July ICth, and 
 on the 31st the sheriff put his deputy in 
 charge, announcing that his nephew had come 
 in from Pestilence Vale, "terrible sick with 
 the chills," and that he was "going to take 
 him down to tidewater." And, in truth, that 
 very evening he drove over to the Pacific and 
 Atlantic Railroad with his nephew by his side,
 
 AND A FEW FWS. H5 
 
 all huddled up in blankets, although the day 
 had been hot enough to cook eggs in the open. 
 
 It took the sheriff and Williams ten days to 
 reach Troybany, while the schedule time for 
 the trip is only five days. But they had been 
 obliged to travel by easy stages, for, despite 
 the sheriff's anti-execution device, Williams 
 had been well-nigh wrenched in two by the 
 drop, and still suffered horribly at times. On 
 reaching Troybany, the sheriff saw Williams 
 comfortably bestowed at a hotel and then went 
 out to view the town. Almost the first man 
 he met was Lawyer Belford, of San Topaz, 
 the counsel who had defended Williams. 
 
 "So you got my telegram?" cried the lawyer 
 joyously. 
 
 "What telegram?" asked the sheriff, with a 
 presentiment that there was a snag somewhere 
 in the stream. 
 
 "Why,the telegram telling you to come right 
 along here." 
 
 "I got no telegram," said the sheriff. 
 
 "Well, that's too rich for utterance. What 
 brought you here, then?" 
 
 "Why, damn it, man, I came on business 
 business of my own." 
 
 "Of course, of course," said the lawyer 
 soothingly. "I know. The Williams busi- 
 ness. Fii/my, ain't it? That's what I'm 
 
 here for, too. Two days after you left I got 
 Wolfe and Fox, a law firm of this 
 
 letter from 
 
 place, asking if we could tell them anything 
 of Peter Williams, last heard of at San Topaz, 
 and giving the terms of his uncle's will.
 
 116 SEVEN SMILES 
 
 They said they had written to him at San 
 Topaz, but had received no answer." 
 
 "He got a letter on the day of the execu- 
 tion," said the sheriff. 
 
 "Did he, now? Well, well. Fancy that! 
 And what has become of it, I wonder?" 
 
 "He's got it with him, I guess," said the 
 sheriff with a rumbling laugh. 
 
 "Ah, I guess so, too," said the lawyer with 
 a discreet and mild echo of the sheriff's mirth. 
 "At any rate, I telegraphed that Williams had 
 died suddenly on July 16th, and got a dispatch 
 in reply to come on immediately and bring all 
 the proofs of his death. I went at once to 
 your office, but found you gone, as I've said. 
 Got a copy of your official return of Williams' 
 execution, a copy of the Roundup's account of 
 the hanging, and a copy of the coroner's cer- 
 tificate all properly sworn to. But on the 
 train I happened to think that I had omitted 
 to get a certificate of the burial, and as I re- 
 membered to have heard that you attended to 
 that, I thought considering the enormous 
 interests at stake it was best to telegraph you 
 to come on. All expenses paid, of course. 
 So naturally, when I saw you here, I jumped 
 at once to the conclusion that you had come 
 in answer to that call." 
 
 "No, sir," said the sheriff. 
 
 "Well, never mind; you're here, and I'll 
 see that you don't get left," said the lawyer 
 cheerily. "I'm retained for Matthew Will- 
 iams, the present heir, you know. Funny, 
 ain't it, that I defended Peter Williams when
 
 AND A FEW FIZ8. H7 
 
 living and am now on the other side wnen he's 
 dead? Small world, eh? The case comes up 
 in the Probate Court to-morrow at ten, and, 
 of course, you'll be there." 
 
 "I'll be thar for sure," said the sheriff 
 grimly. 
 
 He was, and with him came Peter Williams, 
 wrapped in a big storm coat of the sheriff's, 
 with the collar turned up to his ears. 
 
 Mr. Wolfe, of the local law firm, made a 
 statement of the decease of J. Cannon Piece, 
 of the drawing up and filing of his will, read 
 it aloud it was a very short document and 
 then asked that the status of Matthew Will- 
 iams, here present, be duly recorded as resid- 
 uary legatee, owing to the decease without 
 legitimate issue or any other so far as known 
 of Peter Williams, the original heir. 
 
 "Yon are prepared to present the proper 
 proofs of the decease of Peter Williams, I 
 suppose?" asked the judge. 
 
 "Certainly," was the reply. In doing so, 
 Mr. Wolfe regretted to say, they would be 
 obliged to introduce a very delicate and dis- 
 tressing story. The young man, Peter Will- 
 iams, it appeared, had been his uncle's favor- 
 ite nephew, but had quarreled with him, had 
 gone out West, and there, passing from one 
 excess to another, had finally, in a drunken 
 passion, taken the life of a fellow-being in the 
 town of San Topaz, in the State of Orefornia, 
 for which crime he had suffered the extreme 
 penalty of the law. Documentary evidence
 
 118 SEVEN SMILES 
 
 in the shape of a transcript of the trial and 
 all of the requisite official attestations of the 
 execution would be presented by an attorney- 
 at-lavv of San Topaz. In addition to which 
 by what they could only regard as a providen- 
 tial coincidence the sheriff of San Topaz was 
 in court at that very moment. 
 
 Then Lawyer Belford was introduced and 
 read from the transcript of the trial the per- 
 sonal statement under examination of the 
 younger Williams, as to his name, age, place 
 of birth, etc., and read also the sheriff's re- 
 turn for the execution, the coroner's certificate 
 of death, and the "dull thud" paragraph of 
 the Weekly Roundup. 
 
 "We place these in evidence," concluded 
 the lawyer, "although they are almost super- 
 ogatory in view of the presence here of the 
 sheriff of San Topaz, whom I shall now ask to 
 take the stand." 
 
 The witness chair creaked as Sheriff Wins- 
 low settled his huge bulk between its arms. 
 
 "Your name is Stephen Douglas Winslow, 
 and you are sheriff of San Topaz, Orefornia, I 
 believe?" said Lawyer Belford, smiling pleas- 
 antly -at his fellow townsman. 
 
 "I am to both questions." 
 
 "You were officially present at the execu- 
 tion of Peter Williams, on the 16th day of 
 July, of this year?" 
 
 "I was." 
 
 "This certified copy of your return of the 
 execution is correct in every particular, is it 
 not?"
 
 AND A FEW FIBS. 119 
 
 "It's a k'rect copy." 
 
 "You took quite an interest in the unfor- 
 tunate young man, I understand, Mr. Sheriff, 
 and personally attended to the disposal of the 
 remains?" 
 
 "Wai," said the sheriff, slowly spreading 
 himself over the back of the chair, "there's a 
 young man here who can answer that question 
 better than me." 
 
 Lawyer Belford evidently did not expect 
 this answer, for he hesitated a moment. 
 
 "Put the young man on the stand by all 
 means," said Mr. Wolfe. 
 
 Then the sheriff led the muffled young man 
 to the chair and stood beside him while he 
 was sworn. 
 
 "What is your name?" asked Belford, 
 glancing curiously at the witness. 
 
 Before replying, the witness slowly turned 
 down his coat-collar, and then, wheeling 
 around in his chair, said, with difficulty the 
 catch in his voice running through all that he 
 said 
 
 "Peter Williams." 
 
 "What!" cried Lawyer Belford, and fell 
 back in his chair clutching at his necktie as 
 though he were going to have a fit. 
 
 "Oh, you know me well enough, I guess, 
 Mr. Belford," said Williams, "though you 
 didn't save me from swinging. And Mat 
 knows me well enough, too, I see, although I 
 guess I'm considerably more changed than he 
 seems to be. Howdy, Mat? Sorry for you, 
 old man, but I've got to knock you out this
 
 120 SEVEN SMILES 
 
 time. By the way, too, if there's any doubt- 
 ing anywhere around this courtroom as to my 
 identity, why, just look at this neck!" 
 
 Upon which he pulled off a big silk scarf, 
 and showed the lingering shadow of the black 
 imprint of the hangman's rope, whose close 
 hug even the sheriff's life-saving contrivance 
 had not quite overcome. 
 
 Lawyer Belford still sat grasping his neck- 
 tie and staring speechlessly at the witness, 
 while Mat Williams' gray face grew livid as 
 he crept into the shadow of his attorney's 
 back. Only the old lawyer, Wolfe, retained 
 his self-possession. 
 
 "Your honor!" he cried, "we object. This 
 is most irregular, most unheard of, and we 
 object." 
 
 "It is most irregular, as you say," said the 
 
 1'udge suavely, "and, under the circumstances, 
 shall myself ask the witness to tell his story." 
 
 "We object." 
 
 "Certainly," said the judge. Then, turn- 
 ing to the witness, "Peter Williams," he said, 
 "if that be your name, how comes it that you 
 are here alive?" 
 
 Then Williams told the story that he had 
 been taught, that the sheriff, taking compas- 
 sion on his youth and near grasp of fortune, 
 believing in his solemn promise to reform, and 
 not looking forward to any such complications 
 as had arisen, had consented to arrange the 
 rope so that resuscitation might be possible. 
 
 The judge listened with close attention, 
 and then turning to Winslow, said, "Of course
 
 AND A FEW FIBS. 121 
 
 there was a monetary consideration in this, 
 Mr. Sheriff?" 
 
 "Wai, nat'rel, your honor," said Winslow, 
 in a surprised tone of voice. 
 
 "So I supposed. Now, sir," to Lawyer 
 Wolfe, "I will hear the grounds of your objec- 
 tion." 
 
 "They are very simple," said that old 
 practitioner. "We object not only because of 
 the utter irrelevancy of the testimony, but 
 because of the utter immateriality of the wit- 
 ness himself. We are quite willing to admit 
 that during the lifetime of this young man his 
 name was Peter Williams, but, your honor, 
 Peter Williams is dead he was hanged by the 
 neck till dead, in Sau Topaz, on the sixteenth 
 day of July of this year of our Lord one 
 thousand eight hundred and ninety-four, and 
 you yourself, your honor, have admitted the 
 evidence that proves it. The testimony of 
 this man Winslow which he will be only too 
 willing to give that he, a sworn officer of the 
 law, did cheat the law, and did actively par- 
 ticipate in an evasion of the law and made a 
 lying return, cannot possibly have the faintest 
 weight in this court. It would be the testi- 
 mony of a self-confessed perjurer indulging in 
 cumulative perjury. We are even willing to 
 admit that such a plot was concocted, and 
 that it was carried to a successful issue, but 
 that does not in the very slightest degree 
 affect the legal fact of the demise of the late 
 Peter Williams, as sworn to in every requisite 
 formality. It comes to just this, your honor:
 
 122 SEVEN SMILES 
 
 Physically Peter Williams may be alive, but 
 legally he is dead, and legally, too, Matthew 
 Williams is therefore the only heir." 
 
 "Humph!" said the judge, with a faintly- 
 marked twist at the corner of his mouth. 
 "Your statement, Mr. W r olfe, puts a very 
 curious aspect on affairs. I will tak the 
 matter under advisement." 
 
 And he has it under advisement yet.
 
 OLD LICK'S GHOST. 
 A CALIFORNIA CHRISTMAS STORY. 
 
 "Or courth," said Mrs. Colonel Bounty, 
 with her charming lisp, "of courth you have 
 a ghotht here. Such a plath as thith is as 
 naturally the home of a ghotht as Udolpho 
 ithelf." 
 
 "Of course there is," assented the burly 
 host, "and at the risk of every one of you 
 keeping a lamp burning all night, I must in 
 seriousness make the announcement: There 
 is a ghost here." 
 
 The men all said "Nonsense" and "Pooh- 
 pooh," while the ladies smiled in varying de- 
 grees of sickliness, but Mr. Wodin calmly 
 repeated his affirmation. Indeed, the repeti- 
 tion was made with so much earnestness and 
 apparent good faith that at last the men de- 
 cided to get at the real extent of Wodin's 
 bona-fides. 
 
 "Look here now, Wodin," said Judge 
 Tome, with his favorite' gesture of an extended 
 forefinger; "do you mean to tell us seriously 
 that you have seen a ghost here?" 
 
 "Never," said Wodiu. 
 
 "I thought not," said the judge trium- 
 phantly; "mere hearsay evidence, gathered 
 probably from your Portuguese contingent 
 over there."
 
 124 SEVEN SMILES 
 
 "I have never seen the ghost," said Wodin 
 quietly, "but I have seldom passed a night 
 here for the past two years without hearing it." 
 
 This rather staggered the judge, and, while 
 he was meditating upon his line of rebuttal, 
 Miss Grace Colby, who was achieving some- 
 thing of a reputation as an elocutionist, asked 
 in a rather thrilling fashion whose ghost it was. 
 
 "Why, old James Lick's, I suppose," re- 
 plied Wodin; "this was his place, his favorite 
 country retreat, you know, before it came into 
 our hands." 
 
 "But why should he haunt you?" inquired 
 Colonel Bounty. 
 
 "I can't give you any explanation about the 
 cause of the visitations," answered Wodin; 
 "all I know is that Lick's ghost walks slowly 
 up and down that veranda there almost every 
 night." 
 
 "Oh, bosh!" cried the men; "Wodin's spin- 
 ning a Christmas yarn and wants to scare us 
 into taking the next train into town." 
 
 "Scarcely that," replied Wodin, smiling, 
 "as the next train doesn't go until a quarter 
 past nine to-morrow morning. I have noth- 
 ing more to say about it now," he went on; 
 "wait until to-night and hear for yourselves, 
 and meanwhile let's go in to dinner." 
 
 The spot where the above conversation took 
 place was that delightful bend of the Guada- 
 lupe Creek, which empties into the upper end 
 of San Francisco Bay, known by the prosaic 
 name of Lick Mills. The dead millionaire 
 always had a liking for this part of the bay
 
 AND A FEW FIBS. 125 
 
 valley, just where the horrible ooze of the 
 mud-flats stiffens into adobe, and at one 
 time owned everything from dismantled 
 Alviso Landing almost down to sleepy Santa 
 Clara. 
 
 The warm but tempered climate was very 
 grateful to the old gentleman; he liked 
 the pastoral scene and the tall hills that shut 
 in the valley like a great waH. Moreover, he 
 had certain utilitarian ideas about the place 
 which, had he lived, he would undoubtedly 
 have carried out. One of these ideas was to 
 make the Guadalupe a navigable canal from 
 this corner of it down to the landing, to build 
 large flouring mills here, and to reestablish the 
 departed glories of Alviso. The mills and 
 locks were built; but the massive brickwork 
 of the locks is slowly bulging into the stream; 
 the mills were long ago burned, and the moss is 
 thicker than ever oil the deserted warehouses 
 of Alviso. 
 
 There was a fringe of willows along the 
 Guadalupe when the lands about the creek 
 came into Lick's possession, but in this par- 
 ticular corner he added to the natural timber 
 by setting down a plantation of splendid trees, 
 chiefly such shade makers as the sycamore, 
 maple, lime, and oak. Most of all, though, 
 was he proud of his double avenue of weeping 
 willows, extending from the house by the 
 creek's bank to the county road. The avenues 
 are little more than a wild grove at present, 
 but there are lovely vistas still to be had be- 
 tween the rows of feathery branches which
 
 126 SEVEN SMILES 
 
 sweep down to meet the rank grass, that is 
 cool even in the hottest day. 
 
 The house is a great rambling structure, 
 with broad, echoing halls, bedrooms big enough 
 for a large family, and a dining-room that is 
 almost baronial in its proportions. Very 
 broad verandas run around three sides of the 
 house, and as the trees crowd in rather closely 
 on these, the daylight that gets indoors is 
 like that underneath the willows always 
 rather cool and shadowy. When it is garish 
 outside, it is dusky within; and when it is 
 dusk without, it is gloomy within. The lamps 
 serve rather to deepen the shadows of the 
 corners than to dispel them, the halls seem to 
 be more echoey than ever after dark, and the 
 great bedrooms look absolutely cavernous. So 
 that, altogether, Mrs. Colonel Bounty's lisp- 
 ing, matter-of-course assumption that the 
 mansion had its ghost was very natural. 
 
 The conversation, which had been closed by 
 a call to dinner, had been held on the western 
 veranda, for, notwithstanding the fact that it 
 was Christmas Eve, and the evening of 
 Christmas Eve at that, the air was as mild as 
 spring. The first rains had turned o(T the 
 faucet about a week before, and the dropping 
 sun had come out with a June-like vigor. 
 
 Those who were doing the talking were Mr. 
 Wodin and his guests. Mr. Wodin was a mass- 
 ive and most hospitable Swede, who was the 
 manager of the factory which had taken the 
 place of the original mill, and, as he detested 
 being alone and had accommodations for a
 
 AND A FEW FIBS. 127 
 
 regiment, he was forever filling, or partly fill- 
 ing, the great mansion with whomsoever of his 
 particular friends he could get to pass a day, 
 or a week, or a month with him. For several 
 days past he had been laying his plans to 
 have an old-fashioned Christmas Day in a 
 country house, and had so well succeeded that 
 he had now some dozen odd city folks on his 
 hands to fodder and bed. They had all come 
 down by the midday train, and, after having 
 got over a very noisy assignment of quarters, 
 had all trooped outdoors, vowing that the 
 weather and place were both too lovely for 
 them to stay cooped up within any four walls. 
 Truly there were inducements enough to 
 draw them outdoors that delightful Decem- 
 ber afternoon. The weather was an atmos- 
 pheric treat, and the view both near and far 
 was peculiarly grateful to the eye. Close at 
 their feet was the grassy lawn, with its flower 
 beds, shade trees, and graveled walks. A 
 step beyond was the fishpond, with the mill 
 buildings at one end, and the Portuguese 
 quarters at the other, but both embowered in 
 willows and sycamores. Then in the middle 
 distance were the great level stretches of 
 farming and fruit lands, with the high roofs 
 and spires of the Asylum for the Chronic In- 
 sane breaking the line of plane, and then in 
 the distance the hills stretching from Pilar- 
 citos on the west clear round, past the Los 
 Gatos gap, to the bare scarp of the Mission 
 Peak back of Irvingtou. All the uplifted 
 profiles were aglow in the red light of the set-
 
 128 SEVEN SMILES 
 
 ting sun as they looked, while up on Mount 
 Hamilton's further cone they could see the 
 gleaming domes that covered Lick's noblest 
 monument and tomb. 
 
 It was late before they all retired that night, 
 and though the ghost had formed the topic of 
 conversation again, both at the dinner and 
 during the games that followed it, no one's 
 slumbers were frightfully disturbed, and every 
 one appeared at breakfast next morning in 
 good order and color. Christmas greetings 
 flew about; the few young folks who had been 
 brought down had hung up their stockings 
 and had found them crammed in the morning; 
 the Christmas-tree was lying outside ready to 
 be set up in the parlor; there was talk of a 
 magic lantern, and Mr. Wodin went heavily 
 about, smiling and beaming like a veritable 
 Santa Glaus. His Christmas day in a country 
 house was evidently a success. 
 
 But jolly host though he was, he had to be 
 told the truth, and it was Mrs. Colonel 
 Bounty who flatly brought it out. 
 
 "Mr. Wodin," she said, "you are a hum- 
 bug. There ith no ghotht." 
 
 Many of them cried out an indorsement of 
 this uncomplimentary opinion, but they were 
 suddenly silenced by Dr. Lassen's going over 
 to the enemy. 
 
 "Excuse me," he said, in his rather posi- 
 tive fashion; "there is a ghost, and my wife 
 and I heard it." 
 
 "Ah," said Mr. Wodin, with one of his 
 long, high-pitched laughs, "what did I tell
 
 AND A FEW FIBS. 129 
 
 you? Why, you might all have heard it, had 
 you not gone so heavy-headed to bed." 
 
 "Tell us what you heard, doctor," was the 
 next demand. 
 
 "Well," said he, "it was about two o'clock 
 in the morning that I was awakened by a feel- 
 ing of intense cold. It was due, I found, to 
 Mrs. Lassen's having kicked the bedclothes 
 off me you needn't threaten me with that 
 knife, my dear, for you know I'm telling the 
 truth. While I was readjusting the covers I 
 heard a heavy footfall on the veranda just 
 outside my window, and then another, and 
 another in different parts of the porch." 
 
 "The watchman, of course," said Judge 
 Tome loftily. 
 
 "Not at all," replied Dr. Lassen; "I awak- 
 ened my wife and asked her to listen. She 
 did for a minute or so, then cried out 'Lick's 
 ghost,' and ducked her head under the bed- 
 clothes. 'Now, come out of that,'" I said, 'and 
 I'll tell you what this ghost is, but first listen 
 attentively/ She pulled the bedclothes down 
 from one ear, and we both lay quiet and lis- 
 tened. The heavy footsteps were very audible 
 and came from all parts of the veranda. 
 'Now, Ella,' I said, 'tell me, do you notice 
 anything peculiar about those footsteps?' 
 'They are very loud,' she said. 'Anything 
 else?' I asked. 'Yes; very crackly,' she said. 
 'Anything else?' I persisted; 'anything about 
 their regularity?' 'They are very irregular,' 
 she said. 'I should say so,' I replied. 'Listen, 
 there's one just outside, and there's another
 
 130 SEVEN SMILES 
 
 nearly up to the corner by Bounty's room. 
 You see, then, if there's any one doing the 
 promenade act out there, he must walk like a 
 kangaroo. Now, come out here and I'll show 
 you there's no one. Here's your wrapper.' 
 She came out shivering, but I dragged her to 
 the window and pulled up the shade. The 
 moon was shining clearly, and we could see 
 everything almost as plainly as we do now. 
 There was no one, of course, on the veranda, 
 yet, as we were looking, there was the sound 
 of a loud footstep directly in front of us. My 
 wife turned to run, but J gripped her arm and 
 wouldn't let her stir. 'Tell me what that 
 veranda is covered with,' I said, 'and then you 
 can go to bed.' 'It's covered with tin and it's 
 painted red,' she said, 'and now let me return 
 to bed, you brute.' I let her go. 'Now, my 
 dear,' I said, when I, too, was under cover, 
 'go back to your schooldays and tell me what 
 effect the sun would have upon a lot of tin 
 sheets exposed as those are out there.' 'It 
 would make them expand, I suppose,' she 
 said. 'Naturally,' I replied; 'and what would 
 these same tin sheets do on a cold night, for 
 as you have noticed, it is a cold night what 
 would these sheets do?' 'They would con- 
 tract, I guess,' she replied. 'Eight again,' I 
 said, 'and it is in the cracking sound of that 
 contraction that you have Lick's ghost.' " 
 
 Everybody laughed, Mr. VVodin the loudest 
 of all, and Lick's ghost was declared to have 
 been permanently and completely laid. 
 
 With the proceedings of the day this story
 
 AND A FEW FIBS. 131 
 
 has little to do, and they may be almost dis- 
 missed by saying that they were thoroughly 
 seasonable. After breakfast all the horses and 
 conveyances on the place were brought out and 
 placed at the disposal of the guests. A few of 
 these their number was really but four drove 
 over to Santa Clara and attended service in the 
 college church; others explored the smooth, 
 boulevard-like roads of the neighborhood; 
 while others again paid visits to some friends 
 who happened to be in the locality. Most of 
 the ladies, however, took pity upon the poor 
 little Swiss housekeeper, and stayed in the 
 house to help prepare the dinner, for which 
 Mr. Wodin had made the most extravagant 
 preparations; to set up the Christmas-tree; to 
 see that the dining-room was properly deco- 
 rated, and to work out the problem of serving 
 sixteen people with only a dozen and two of 
 knives and forks. Wodin also remained at 
 home and was the busiest personage of them 
 all. His heavy step and high, cackling laugh 
 were heard everywhere, his great florid face 
 dripping with perspiration, and a cigar forever 
 tucked away under his big blond mustache. 
 The dinner was a triumph, the magic lantern 
 worked to a charm, there was plenty of good 
 music, and the children were allowed to stay 
 up until nearly eleven, when the Virginia 
 Keel was danced. Altogether it was a jolly, 
 splendid time a time of real merriment and 
 unaffected pleasure. By midnight every one 
 had retired with a chorus of "good-nights" 
 and a rattle of bedroom doors.
 
 132 SEVEN SMILES 
 
 It was, perhaps, an hour after when Dr. 
 Lassen was aroused by his wife shaking his 
 shoulder. 
 
 "Eh, eh," he grunted; "tell him I'll be 
 down in a minute." Then, being wide-awake, 
 and something in his wife's "Hush!" aiding 
 the process, he sat up and asked, "What is it?" 
 
 "Listen," she whispered, in reply. 
 
 The doctor listened, and out on the veranda 
 he heard the scuffle of feet and then a laugh 
 an unpleasant, subdued, and smothered 
 laugh. 
 
 "That's not the tin roof," said Mrs. Lassen. 
 
 "No," he replied gruffly; "but it's some 
 unripe fools trying to play a prank ghost. I'll 
 just settle them." 
 
 Whereupon he rose softly, tiptoed over to 
 the washstand, and had lifted the pitcher out 
 of the bowl when he dropped it back again, as 
 a shriek of mortal terror came ringing out 
 from the next bedroom. It was that occupied 
 by Miss Grace Colby, and, as he was debating 
 what to do, there came a second shriek, and 
 then another, and then a clamor at the door 
 which communicated between the two rooms. 
 Jumping into his trousers and slippers, the 
 doctor ran to the door and opened it, when in 
 fell Miss Colby in a dead faint. By this time 
 the hall was filled with people in every descrip- 
 tion of deshabille and excitement. There 
 were knockings at the door and inquiries of 
 all sorts; so the doctor, telling his wife to at- 
 tend to Miss Colby, opened the door, and, in 
 reply to the general clamor, said that the
 
 AND A FEW FIBS. 133 
 
 young lady had evidently been badly fright- 
 ened by something and had fainted, but would 
 be all right in a minute or two. In proof of 
 which Miss Colby at that very moment opened 
 her eyes, shuddered a little, and then asked if 
 she could not get into bed with Mrs. Lassen, 
 as she dared not return to her room. She was 
 assisted to bed, being still very weak, when 
 there came another knock at the door, and 
 Mr. Wodin's voice was heard asking permis- 
 sion for its owner to enter. He had managed 
 to get most of the people back to their rooms, 
 but was evidently disturbed himself. 
 
 Coming in and shutting the door he went at 
 once to the point. 
 
 "What frightened you, Miss Colby?" he 
 asked. 
 
 From the recesses of Mrs. Lassen's bed the 
 young lady replied in a very faint voice that 
 she had been awakened by a hand being gently 
 passed over her face, and, looking up, had 
 seen a man at her bedside. 
 
 ''Can you describe him?" asked Wodin 
 grimly; and then they saw that he was clutch- 
 ing something in the pocket of his long ulster. 
 
 "I can," replied Miss Colby, a little more 
 steadily, "for the moon was shining clearly. 
 He was an old man, with a long gray beard, 
 and dressed in a dark garment that trailed on 
 the ground. His face was close to mine, and 
 I believe he either had kissed or was 
 about to kiss me. I shrieked out, when he 
 straightened himself up, threw out his hands, 
 and walked out the window laughing."
 
 134 BEVEN SMILES 
 
 "Laughing!" echoed the doctor; "that's 
 strange." 
 
 "You're sure you were not dreaming?" 
 asked Mr. Woclin rather crossly. 
 
 "Go and look at my window," replied Miss 
 Colby, with as much dignity as she could 
 throw into the command, uttered as it was 
 with nothing visible but a blond head in 
 crimps, and two blue eyes. 
 
 Both the doctor and Mr. Wodin looked at 
 the window and found it wide open and the 
 curtain rolled up to the very top. 
 
 "Well," said the young lady rather de- 
 fiantly, "you don't think I'm in the habit of 
 foing to bed with my window like that, I hope? 
 tell you the man was there." 
 
 "It's very queer, very " Mr. Wodin had 
 begun, when his speech was cut short by 
 the furious strumming of the piano downstairs 
 in the parlor. There was a crash in the bass, 
 a helter-skelter among the treble notes, a wail, 
 and then the thump of the piano-cover as it 
 was slammed to. 
 
 With the crash, Mr. Wodin, who had been 
 standing in the fixity of utter amazement, was 
 roused into action. Drawing a pistol from 
 his pocket he rushed from the room, followed 
 by the doctor and accompanied by the shrieks 
 of Miss Colby. When they reached the hall 
 it was once more filled with frightened women 
 and jabbering men. Without heeding any 
 one, Mr. Wodin ran through them, heading 
 for his objective point, when Judge Tome's 
 voice was heard crying:
 
 A FEW msa. 135 
 
 "Get out of that, you ass, or I fire at three! 
 One two three!" And immediately after a 
 pistol shot rang out, then another, then a good 
 round oath, and the cling of shattered glass. 
 
 Mr. Wodin turned at the head of the stair- 
 case, which he had reached, and strode to the 
 judge's room. 
 
 "Tome," he called out, rapping smartly at 
 the door, "what in heaven's name are you 
 doing; what's the matter?" 
 
 "Matter!" called back the judge, as he 
 threw open the door and showed himself, 
 with his smoking revolver in his hand; "mat- 
 ter enough, I should think; some denied fool 
 has been trying to play an idiotic joke by 
 smothering me with a pillow. I had all I 
 could do to get my head clear, grab my pistol 
 from under the bolster, and let fly, when the 
 fellow made a dive out the window." 
 
 "Did yoa hit him:"' asked Mr. Wodin. 
 
 "I don't know," replied the judge; "I gen- 
 erally do get there, but I was so flustered and 
 strangled that I am afraid my aim was uncer- 
 tain." 
 
 "Have you any idea who your visitor was?" 
 asked Dr. Lassen. 
 
 "Not the faintest, except that I imagine it 
 was some ass, who thought it a clever trick," 
 said the judge hotly; "whoever it was, he 
 had disguised himself with a heavy beard and 
 a long, flowing gown a dressing-gown, I 
 should say." 
 
 "Look here," said Colonel Bounty, "this 
 thing is getting a little too serious, and I pro-
 
 136 SEVEN SMILES 
 
 pose that we count noses and see if it is possi- 
 ble that there is any one so foolish as to carry 
 practical joking to such an absurd extent as 
 to wake up everybody in the house, distress 
 our host, and set the women in fits." 
 
 The muster was made and every one was 
 answered for, either directly or by authorized 
 proxy. 
 
 "Do you think it possible?" said young 
 Camomile, the artist; "I only offer it as a 
 suggestion, don't you know but old man 
 gray beard long gown and all that sort of 
 thing don't your know do you think it possi- 
 bly might be Lick's ghost?" 
 
 "Oh, Lick's ghost be hanged!" cried the 
 impetuous doctor; "Lick's ghost can't 
 smother Judge Tome and bang the piano at 
 the same time, can he? We men must ferret 
 this thing out. By all the horse-leeches, 
 what's thatf" 
 
 "That" was a conglomerate sound of tram- 
 pling, yelling, and splashing on the roof, just 
 above them. 
 
 Colonel Bounty's experience in command 
 here came in good play. "Tome!" he 
 shouted, "you, and you, and you," indicating 
 three other fellows, "stay here and look after 
 the women, and, Wodin, you and the doctor 
 and I will take to the roof. Give me that 
 poker out of the grate in our room, my dear," 
 h. 1 added. Mrs. Colonel Bounty passed him 
 the poker without a word, the doctor drew a 
 penknife, and, led by Wodin with his re- 
 volver, the three went into the bathroom and
 
 AND A FEW FIBS. 137 
 
 up by a step-ladder through a trapdoor to the 
 roof. The hullaballoo was in full swing when 
 Wodin put his head through the trapdoor, 
 and, as he did so, the colonel and the doctor 
 heard him say, "Well, I'm damned!" The 
 other two followed up as quickly as possible, 
 and, when they had emerged through the 
 scuttle, their exclamations were patterned 
 closely after the same order of profanity. 
 And well they might be, for there, leaping and 
 capering about the roof in a state of complete 
 divestment, was a thundering old graybeard. 
 As soon as he saw the three investigators he 
 gave a loud whoop, and, springing toward the 
 water tank with a monkey-like agility, plunged 
 headlong into it. 
 
 Coming to the surface with much heavy 
 puffing, he hung on to the side with two long, 
 skinny arms, and waggled his head as though 
 it was set on a universal joint. 
 
 "What the devil are you doing there?" 
 called out the colonel, who was the first to find 
 his free speech. 
 
 "What the devil are you doing here?" 
 yelled out the man in the tank; "I'm St. 
 Peter, and I'm walking on the water," with 
 which he splashed about with his feet until 
 one would have thought a stern-wheeler had 
 got into the reservoir. "Git outer this, you 
 unsanctified porkers," he shouted; "claw your 
 throats and run down some steep place to the 
 sea. Bring along my rooster and I'll drown 
 it before he has a chance to crow once!" As 
 he said so, he unhooked his arms, and, scoop-
 
 138 SEVEN SMILES 
 
 ing up the water in his hands, threw it in 
 large splashes at the three intruders on his 
 saintly ablutions. 
 
 "By St. Peter himself, this beats the ghost," 
 said Mr. Wodin; "what lunatic do you sup- 
 pose this is?" 
 
 "You have hit it exactly," said the doctor; 
 "this undoubtedly is some poor lunatic who 
 has escaped from that asylum over there. 
 The moon is full, you see, and, as this is 
 Christmas, the keepers are possibly in the 
 same condition. This old chap seems to be 
 harmless, and we may as well let him take his 
 death of cold as shoot him; but the great 
 question is, how many got out with him?" 
 
 "How many?" shrieked St. Peter from the 
 water tank; "how many what? How many 
 beans make five, or how many almanacs make 
 a year? Yah!" splashing furiously with his 
 heels; "you make me sick, you and the rest 
 of your generation of vipers. I'll see to it." 
 He made as though he would leap out, but 
 the doctor, walking close to the tank, looked 
 him in the eye and quietly told him to stay 
 where he was, and the old fellow peaceably 
 hooked himself on once more. 
 
 "I'll mount guard here," said the doctor, 
 "while you go and hunt up the piano-player. 
 Doirt hurt him; tell him to be quiet in your 
 ordinary voice, and he'll mind you." 
 
 The colonel and Mr. Wodin had not reached 
 the bathroom floor when there was a loud 
 blowing of police whistles in the garden, and 
 by the time they reached the hall, the judge
 
 AND A FEW FIBS. 139 
 
 came running upstairs to inform them all that 
 a couple of patients had escaped from the 
 asylum, and that the keepers were out in force 
 hunting for them. 
 
 "Tell them to come up and get on the roof 
 and they'll find one of them in the water 
 tank," said Mr. Wodin, laughing; "I imagine, 
 judge, that that chap must be your visitor, as 
 well as Miss Colby's admirer. The other fel- 
 low can't be far off. At any rate, he was 
 playing a hurricane scherzo on my poor piano 
 a few minutes ago." 
 
 St. Peter was speedily secured and brought 
 down through the trapdoor by the anxious 
 keepers. He was re-clothed, but was most de- 
 cidedly not in his right mind. He made the 
 company a disjointed harangue, in a voice like 
 a steam whistle, then broke from the attend- 
 ants, threw a handspring, and slid down the 
 banisters before they could catch him again. 
 
 His companion in flight, who was a poor 
 crazed actor, had evidently slipped away as 
 soon as the keeper's whistle was heard, and it 
 was not until the following Thursday that he 
 was found perched on a rail fence, electrify- 
 ing assembled Milpitas with a highly original 
 version of "Curfew shall not Ring To-night."
 
 "IF THINE ENEMY THIRST.'* 
 
 William Higgins, alias Cockney Bill, alias the Cherub, 
 alias Vincent de Vere, alias the Snoozer, etc., loquitur, 
 with the coughing spells omitted. 
 
 IF you'll 'ear ..my gentle voice and it's 
 a-gettin' bloomin' gentle now there's nothink 
 so heasy as preachin'. Hit's the practicin' 
 that's so bloody 'ard. 
 
 'Ere I lies, a cawnvic' in the 'orspital ward 
 of a Hamerican State Prison, a-coughin' of 
 my blessid lungs out, and servin' a tenner for 
 'uggin' of a dear hold gemmun with hundue 
 haft'ection. Yet I wos a good little bit of a 
 chappie, doncherno, when I wos a kid. I 
 grew up good, too; used to be p'inted hotit 
 has a lovely hexample at the Silver Star Mis- 
 sion Sunday-school in Bleedin' 'Art Yard 
 and, snare me for a dickey-bird, hif I didn't 
 use to instruck one of the hinfant classes me- 
 self. So you see, guv'nor, that I knows some- 
 think of the preachin' part of the bizness. 
 And now I'll tell you 'ow I come out in the 
 practicin'. 
 
 One of the pawson fellers that used to come 
 to the mission was a bloke called the Reverind 
 'Osea Cawning. 'E wos a 'ard un, 'e wos a 
 regular winegar chap. Yes, blawst me, if he 
 wasn't wus than winegar he wos hall bitin' 
 hacid, the sorter cove that wos never 'appy
 
 AND A FEW FIBS, 141 
 
 'cept he wos a-preachin' 'ell and damnation. 
 I never wonst 'ear 'im speak of Gord as a 
 Gord of mercy, but allus as a horful bein' of 
 wengeance and punishment. Maybe hif 'e 
 'adeut 'a' been so free of 'is hacid and not so 
 bloody kayrful of 'is 'oney, Ishouldn' be 'ere. 
 But you cavvn't tell, doncherno. I guess, 
 arter all, I was cut out for a baddun a hout 
 and hout baddun. 
 
 I wos a-commin' down Haldget Street one 
 doiy, when I see Pawson Cawning a-chinnin' 
 it with a big, fat cove one of those 'ere solid 
 ole duffers that looks as hif they wos stuffed 
 out with Bank of Hingland notes. The paw- 
 son 'ad a little book in 'is 'and, and pretty 
 soon I see old money-bags put 'is fat fore- 
 finger in 'is weskit-pockit and 'ook out a 
 couple of sovs. Then the pawson wrote some- 
 think down in the little book, and dropped 
 the yellow-boys in 'is purse. 
 
 "Beggin' again," I says, says I to myself, an* 
 s 5 elp me Bawb hif I wasn't goin' to turn an' 
 walk awoiy, rather than speak to 'is nibsey, 
 the pawson, when I see 'im do somethink which 
 med my berlood run cold. You see, sir, it 
 'appened in this woy. In sayin' good-by to 
 the rich cove, the pawson got a little flurrid, 
 doncherno, and instead of puttin' the purse 
 in 'is hinside coat-pockit, and the little book 
 wot 'ad the names down on it in 'is houtside 
 coat-pockit, strike me ugly hif 'e didn't but- 
 ton up the little book in 'is hinside pockit, 
 and drop the purse into the pockit of 'is top-
 
 142 SEVEN SMILES 
 
 coat. Has quick as I see this, I says to my- 
 self, says I: 
 
 ''Now, 'ere's the pawson gone and put 'is 
 purse w'ere every young crook can feel hit 
 a-bulgin% even if 'is fingers wos hall 
 thumbs. Just to think now, the pawson 
 will lose all that blessid money wot Vs been 
 workin' so 'ard to rake in, an' the poor 'eathin 
 won't get a blessid fawthin'. Now," I says, 
 says I, "I'll jus' let 'im know wot a hawful 
 mistake he's made." 
 
 With that, I walks up be'ind the pawson, 
 and slips my 'and into 'is pocket, just to show 
 'im where the bloomin' purse wos, when 'e 
 turned like lightniuk and grabs me by the 
 wrist. 
 
 "Ah, you young rascal," he says, says 'e, 
 "pick my pockit, would you?" 
 
 Then, as 'e looks at me close: "Gracious 
 'evins/' 'e cries, "ef it ain't young 'Iggins, of 
 the mission! Wot baseness! Wot a hawful 
 hingrate!" 
 
 I told 'im I wos only goin' to take 'is purse 
 hout of 'is pocket and give it to 'im, so as 'e 
 could put it sommers safe, but 'e only larfed 
 a nawsty, 'orrid larf, that sounded like as hif 
 'e was sharpenin' a knife for me on a steel 
 foile. 
 
 When I see that 'e wouldn't believe me, I 
 struggled to get awoiy, but 'e gripped my 
 
 wrist with sich a horful grip, that 'e activally 
 
 felt it go 
 begged 'im, for Gord's sake, to let me hoff, 
 
 broke one of the bones. I felt it go snap, an' 
 begged 'im, for Gord's sake, to let me hoff, 
 but 'e only larfed again that orful larf, and
 
 AND A FEW FIBS. 143 
 
 said that, s'elp Mm 'evin, 'e would make a wuss 
 example of me nor wos ever Lot's wife. With 
 that, 'e 'anded me hover to a cop, wot seized 
 me by the shoulder w'ile the pawson an' it's 
 the gorspel truth I'm a-tellin' you, guv'nor 
 kep' a 'old on the broken wrist an' kep' 
 a-grindin' away at the loose bones, until w'eai 
 I gets to the station 'ouse I wos dead foint 
 with the sickness of it. Even the cop see 
 that I worn't shammin', but the pawson, 'e 
 hinsisted that I was a young reprobate, that 
 'e 'ad discovered my true character the first 
 moment he'd fixed 'is peepers on my 'aud- 
 some mug and so they shoved me into 
 chokey. Then 'e wanted to come in and proy 
 with me, but the sergeant, 'e gave the pawson 
 a queer kind of a look loike, up and down 
 so fawshin, doncherno and says, says 'e, 
 'twas "again' the regilations." 
 
 The pawson was there bright an' early nex* 
 mawning, an' I thought at fust 'e wasn't 
 a-goin' to happear ag'in' me, but bless 'is 
 Christian 'eart, I'm jiggered if 'e didn't want 
 ter proy with me ag'in. I begged 'im to let 
 my pore mother know where I wos, but 'e said 
 she would be much better hoff to be rid of me, 
 and that, w'en I got hout of jail, I could go 
 bajok to 'er a better man. Then I begged 'im 
 to give me another chawnce, but 'e said 'e 
 might *av* if I 'adn't tried to steal the Lord's 
 money, and that nothink could move 'im. 
 
 Of course I wos committed, altho' the 
 superintendent of the mission gave me a han- 
 gelic character. The pawson, 'owever, got m
 
 144 SEVEN SMILES 
 
 a regilar black heye to anythink like hextenu- 
 ating circumstances by saying that I wos a 
 'ipercriteof the most hout and hout koind, an* 
 the beak giv' me seven year at Pentonville. 
 
 I got hout in somethink over six year, on 
 haccount of my good-condick credits. The 
 chaplain at Pentonville wos a very different 
 snoozer to the Eev. 'Osea Cawning, and when 
 I'd made my time, 'e hadvised me to get away 
 from Lunnon to leave hold Hingland, in 
 fack and begin life ag'in in a new world. 
 J E did more nor giv' me had vice which is the 
 cheapest kind of picnic 'e give me a letter 
 to a brother of 'is, the capt'in hof a ship that 
 wos a-goin' hout to Hinjy. I 'ad 'elped in 
 the kitchen of the joil, on account of my 
 broken wrist, and 'twas agreed that I should 
 be shipped as cook's mate. The capt'in wos 
 just as noice a man as 'is brother, the chapPin; 
 an' I felt, an' hit's the simple Gord's truth, 
 that I intended to start right bin an' be just 
 as bloomin' good as I knew 'ow. For the first 
 two doiys, 'owever, I wos so hawful beastly 
 sick that I didn't care w'ether I wos good or 
 bad. I just wanted to doie, or be 'eaved 
 hoverboard, and 'owever I managed to stand 
 up in that 'orrid galley, I cawn't make hout. 
 I stuck to it, though, while my pore stum- 
 mick and 'eart wos both in my throat most of 
 the time. 
 
 Just as I'd got these innerds in their proper 
 position, stroike me hugly hif they wosn't all 
 turned topsy-turvy again. I wos coming hout 
 of the galley one mornin' with a big tooreen
 
 A FEW FIBS. 145 
 
 of pease-soup in my 'ands, when who should 
 I see, sittin' in a chair on the quarterdeck, 
 but the Rev. 'Osea Cawning. It knocked me 
 so bloody silly that I dropped thetooreen onto 
 the deck. That wos the beginnin' of my 
 troubles there, for when the bo'sun's mate 
 turned round at the row and see the greasy 
 slush a-runnin' down the planks to the scup- 
 pers, he fetched me such a horrible lick across 
 the shoulders with a rope's hend, that I actu- 
 ally thought 'e 'ad broken my spoine. I let 
 out a screech that must 'ave waked up the 
 whole ship. At hanyrate, it woke up the 
 pawson, and as soon as 'e see me, 'e knew me. 
 
 "Merciful 'evins!" he cries, "hif it hain't 
 that bloody-minded joilbird, young 'Iggins!" 
 
 Well, guv'nor, you kin imagine wot my life 
 was hon board ship arter that. The capt'in 
 stood up like a reg'lar brick and said 'e 
 knowed hit hall when I shipped; but the paw- 
 son declared that 'e wouldn't sleep comfor'a- 
 ble so long as I wos aboard, and that hit would 
 be Gord's mercy hif I did not blow hup the 
 'ole bloomin' craft. My life wos just a 'ell, 
 sir, for the nex' two weeks, and I howes it all 
 to that servint of the meek and lowly. 
 
 Jest at the time when I wos a-thinkin' of 
 either cuttin' the pawson's throat with the 
 carvin'-knife, or throwin' myself hoverboard, 
 a fire broke hout about midnight in the cargo 
 w'ich wos mostly furniture and coal-oil 
 and there was hold 'Arry to pay. Hi say hit 
 wos spontanyous combusti'n or a wisitation 
 of Providence; but strike me bloind, guv'nor,
 
 146 SEVEN SMILES 
 
 hif that pawson didn't go an' lay it hall along 
 to me. There wasn't time, 'owsomever, to 
 show Cawning 'ow mistaken 'e wos, for the 
 cargo was hall in a bloize afore you could say 
 'anky-panky, just for hall the world as hif it 
 'ad been set a-fire to in 'arf a dozen places at 
 wonst. 
 
 About three o'clock in the mawnin', the 
 vessel was flame and smoke from hend to 
 hend, and we 'ad to take to the boats; There 
 wos only two of these that wos big enough, or 
 stawnch enough, to be of hany use, and there 
 wos such a horful sight of smoke and smeach 
 a-pourink up between liev'ry plank, that we 
 tumbled into these without border. Hev'ry- 
 body, of course, wanted to be in the first boat, 
 and the consekevence wos that, when she 
 pulled hoff, she wos a-loaded down till the sea 
 come just a hinch or two from her gunnell. 
 The capt'in tried to keep hup discipline, but 
 'twasn't no use; and as I wos small and weak, 
 I wos beat back and 'ad to get into the port 
 boat, which wos just where the bloomin' 
 smoke wos the 'eaviest and most smotherink. 
 Gord wos a-watchink hover me, you see, sir 
 for I 'ear tell arterwards that hev'rybody in 
 the first boat was drownded, and I know that 
 hev'rybody in our boat died 'cept this 'ere 
 brannd from the burnink. 
 
 As soon as I felt myself in the boat and 
 jiminy craminy, wot a black night it was I 
 crawled up to the bow and stowed away in 
 there a bag of biskivits and a 'arf bottle of 
 sherry wine, which we 'ad in the galley for
 
 AND A FEW FIBS. 14? 
 
 cookin'. I didn't saynothink about the swag, 
 cos you see, sir, I didn't know 'ow much tuck 
 there wos in the boat, and I thought I 'ad bet- 
 ter wait a bit an' see which way the cat's meat 
 wos a-valkin' afore I let pussy out of the bag. 
 Well, sir, it wos just a bloomin' good job that 
 I did, for when we looked around in the 
 mawnin', you can tickle me to death with a 
 'ot feather, hif it didn't turn out that there 
 wasn't a crumb or a drop on board. Hev'ry- 
 body 'ad thought that hev'rybody helse wos 
 a-goin' to look arter the grub, and, of course, 
 wot wos hev'rybody's bizness wos nobody's 
 bizness, and there we wos, four people, and 
 the boat as hempty as Old Mother 'Ubbard's 
 pauntry. We 'ad kep' with the hother boat as 
 long as we could see it by the light of the 
 burnin' wessel; but when that went out, and 
 she went down, we soon lost each hother on 
 haccount of a low mist that lay on the water 
 like steam. 
 
 The rosy, bloomin' dawrn showed me an- 
 other thing it showed me a sweet and lovely 
 gemmen sleepin' in the bottom of the boat, 
 with 'is 'at horf and 'is foice all smudged up 
 with smoke. It wos the Reverind 'Osea 
 Cawning. I carn't hexplain to you, sir, just 
 'ow it wos; but w'en I see 'im sprawled out 
 there, with 'is 'ead doddlin' this woiy and 
 that, I feel somethink come hover me like a 
 'ot and cold flush all to wonst just as I re- 
 member 'avin' 'ad w'en I wos took down with 
 the smallpox. I felt as though somethink
 
 US BE YEN SMILES 
 
 wos goin' to 'appen, and as though I wos 
 goin' to be right in the middle of it. 
 
 The sun jumped hout of the sea, like a red- 
 'ot cannon-ball, and by the time it wos hover- 
 'ead, hit wos a white-'ot cannon-ball. 'Oly 
 Moses, but that doiy wos a blisterer, and 
 about 'arf-past four, one of us, a Norway fel- 
 ler, that 'ad got badly 'urt in the 'ead by the 
 pump-wheel, just stretched 'imself hout an* 
 died. The pawson kept a-snoozin' hall doiy, 
 with 'is 'ead under one of the seats, an' the 
 hother feller, a hold man 'e wos, and I think 
 a Hirishman, set on the gunnel paddlin' 'is 
 feet in the water, an' dippin' 'is straw 'at in 
 the sea to keep 'is 'ead cool. Gord love ye, 
 sir, 'e moight just as well 'ave dipped 'is 'at 
 in 'ot water, for the sea itself seemed to be 
 a-bilin'. 
 
 There wasn't breeze enough to lift a 
 chickadee's feather, an' 'twas so bloomin' 
 'ot that I couldn't wink my heyelids, they 
 wos that droy. Hof course I didn't dare say a 
 word about the biskivits an' sherry, cos I 
 knew there wasn't enough to go aroun', an' I 
 didn't want any blarsted row about it, don- 
 cherno? So I suffered with the rest on 'em 
 durin' the doiy, but w'en the sun dropped 
 down into the sea, so like a red-'ot cannon- 
 ball again that you could 'ear it 'iss, an' it got 
 dark with a rush, I just took a nibble at a 
 biskivit an' a swig or two at the sherry, an' 
 went to sleep feelin' quite comfor'ble. W'en 
 I woke next doiy, the Hirisli sailor-man wos 
 gone, so I suppose 'e toppled hoif the gunnel
 
 AND A FEW FIBS. 149 
 
 during the night. The pawson wos still a 
 lyin' hou his back in the middle of the boat, 
 with 'is 'ead hunder the seat, so, as I felt 
 kind of peckish, doncherno, I raked hout my 
 tuck an' 'elped myself to a biskivit or two an' 
 another good swig of the wine. It must 'av* 
 been the gurgle of the sherry that woke up 
 the pawson, for w'en I turned around hafter 
 puttin' the bottle back in its place, there wos 
 the Rev. 'Osea Cawning wrigglin' hout from 
 under the seat like a long black worm. Not- 
 withstandin' the shelter of the seat, 'is 'ead 
 looked like a roasted skull, with 'orrid streaks 
 of 'air an' dirt hall over it, an' w'ile 'e stead- 
 ied 'imself with one 'and, 'e clawed in the 
 hair with the hother, and pointed to w'ere I 
 knows 'is mouth wos, although I could see 
 nothink but a black crack. I thought, too, I 
 see 'im makin' a sort of a movement with this 
 crack that looked like " 'Iggins!" Arter 
 sittin' a w'ile an' lookin' hat 'im an' thinkin' 
 bloody 'ard, I goes hover an' sits down on the 
 seat 'longside of 'im. 
 
 "Feelin' horful bad, pawson?" I asks 'im, 
 kind of sympathetic-loike. 
 
 'E rolls up 'is bloodshot eyes at me, and 
 nods 'is 'ead. 
 
 Then; some 'ow, I couldn' 'elp sayin': 
 "You've made me feel horful bad in your 
 doiy, pawson," says I. 
 
 'E shook 'is 'ead, piteous-loike, an' pointed 
 agin to w'ere 'is mouth wos. 
 
 "Do you remember that doiy w'en yon 
 broke my wrist this wrist?" I says, puttin'
 
 150 SEVEN SMILES 
 
 it right in front of 'im, so that 'e coulcln' 'elp 
 seein' it "an' kep' a-grindin' and a-grindin' 
 at it with such a horful pain that it makes me 
 sick even now to think of it? Do you remem- 
 ber all that, pawson?" 
 
 'E tried to bring 'is two 'ands together as 
 though 'e wos beggin' for mercy; but 'e 
 couldn' do it, an' fell back in a 'eap, loike a 
 bundle of dirty clothes. 
 
 - "And do you remember," I goes hon, 
 " 'ow you wouldn' rest until you 'ad me be- 
 'ind the prison bars and made me a regular 
 joil-bird?" 
 
 'E rolls 'is 'ead about and sort of blows out a 
 Sound that seemed like "Forgive me." I wos 
 very glad to 'ear 'im say that, doncherno, cos 
 it sounded as though 'e wos a-beginnin' to 
 realize wot a bloody bad friend 'e 'ad been to 
 me. So I went on: 
 
 "And do you remember," I says, says I, 
 " 'ow, as soon as you found hout I wos on 
 board the Eron, you started hin to make my 
 life a 'ell for me?" 
 
 Then I says: "Cos hif you don't, /do, an' 
 damn well, too, doncherno." 
 
 I stops a minnit, lookin' down at the paw- 
 son as 'e clawed about with 'is 'ands, then I 
 goes on again, an' I says, says I: 
 
 "Talkin's bloody dry work; it's about time 
 I took a nip." 
 
 I watches the pawson as I says this, an' I 
 sees 'is chest 'eave hup and down, an' 'is 
 heyesturn just as I've seen a 'are's heyes turn 
 w'en the bloody yelpin' pack of 'ounds wos
 
 AND A FEW FIBS. 151 
 
 close onto 'er. So I steps back to the bow of 
 the boat, an', takin' hout the sherry bottle, I 
 wets hit in the sea onst or twice, then lets it 
 dry in the sun which wos a trick for coolin' 
 things hoff that I 'ad learned from the cook. 
 Sittin' down on the seat 'longside 'im again, 
 I puts the bottle hup to my lips an' takes a 
 good gurglin' drink only 'twas more gurgle 
 than drink. Wen the pawson see an' 'ear me 
 a-doin' this, 'e hacts just like a bloomin' 
 loonatic, or rather more like a dorg in a fit. 
 'E struggles, and yelps, and fights bin the 
 hair with 'is fists, while a reddish-black froth 
 comes np to 'is mouth. 
 
 " 'Old on, pawson," I says, says I, "you'll 
 do yourself a hinjury hif you go hon a-hactin' 
 like that. I've been a-tellin' you 'ow you've 
 served me you a minister of the blessed gors- 
 pel of good-will toward man an' now I'm 
 a-goin' to show you 'ow your hown pet joil- 
 bird 'as learned 'ow to return good for hevil. 
 I might say somethink about a kiss for a blow, 
 but you're such a 'ijus-lookin' bloke, sich a 
 mis'rable, horful-lookin' hobjick, that, blow 
 me tight, hiff I think as 'ow your hown mother 
 would kiss you. You know, pawson," I says, 
 says I, "I remember when I wos a little kid at 
 the" Silver Star Mission, back in Lunnon, that 
 I learned a text and dam' me hif I don't 
 think I learned hit from you a text w'ich 
 said as 'ow 'Hif thine henemy thirst, give 'im 
 drink.' Now, 'ere we bar, hafioat on the 
 broad and bloody hocean, with horful death 
 a-starin' us in the face; me a houtcast and a
 
 152 SEVEN SMILES 
 
 child hof sin, and you a 'oly man of Gord. 
 Now, you've boon my henemy ever since you 
 set your bloom in' hopticks on me, yet I'm 
 a-goin' to foller the command of the good 
 book, and I'm a-goin' to give my henemy 
 drink. 'Cos why; 'cos 'e's my henemy, an' 
 'cos 'e's thirsty hawful, beastly, ravin', 
 TEARIN', 'OWLIN' thirsty an* I'm a-goin' 
 to give 'im hall 'e wants to drink." 
 
 I 'ad a hold tarpaulin 'at on, and steppin' 
 down the boat toward the stern, so that the 
 pawson couldn't see me, I filled it right hup 
 with nice, green, lukeivarm, salt-sea water. 
 Then liftin' hup 'is 'ead with one 'and, I 
 pried hopen 'is gap of a mouth with my 
 thumb, and let 'im drink the 'ole blessed 
 'atful! 
 
 For a minnit or two, he lay still and con- 
 tented loike, with the salt water a-drivilin' 
 hotit of the corners of 'is mouth and with 'is 
 'ands lyin' across on 'is 'oly bussim. Then 
 in a few minnits he seemed to grow hunheasy; 
 then 'e bent hisself hup in the middle as 
 though 'e 'ad been squeezed in from both 
 bends; then 'e staggered to 'is knees and feet, 
 and with a 'orrid screech of "Glory," threw 
 hisself hoverboard. 
 
 And then, sir, just to show 'ow a kind Gord 
 watches over them wot does 'is biddin', a big 
 steamer comes right 'longside in less than six 
 hours, and Bill 'Iggins, the Cherub, was saved.
 
 HE KEPT THE ENGAGEMENT. 
 
 "THIS is my stopping-place," she said, ''and 
 I want to thank you once more for the lunch- 
 eon. The lobster was delicious, and I quite 
 agree with you that, broiled, 'it's the loveli- 
 est bird that flies.' " 
 
 "If you say you enjoyed the lunch," said 
 he, "that makes it a success, and I'm de- 
 lighted. I'm not delighted, though, at hav- 
 ing to say good-by, even," he added, with a 
 deprecatory smile, "if it is when leaving you 
 at your shopping-place." 
 
 "Yes," she replied gently, "it is, I believe, 
 
 Suite a man's bore to shop with a woman; 
 ut you misunderstood me I said 'stopping- 
 place.' That is, I was here this morning at 
 ten, and I stop here from now until five 
 o'clock this evening." 
 
 "Well," said her companion, with his pleas- 
 ant laugh, "I knew it took an awful long time 
 to try on a dress, but surely it cannot take all 
 day unless," he added, with a quick, troubled 
 look, "unless vou are having a tr a com- 
 plete outfit." 
 
 "But, you see," she answered, still gently, 
 and leading him into the entry hall of the 
 fashionable modiste, at whose door they had
 
 154 SEVEN SMILES 
 
 halted, "I am not going to try on any dress or 
 dresses, I am going to iit them on." 
 
 And then she looked squarely at him with 
 her frank, brown eyes, and added: "Mr. 
 Van Rensselaer, I am learning to be a dress- 
 maker." 
 
 "What?" he gasped. 
 
 "Just that," she replied. "No doubt you 
 think it a very queer, an incomprehensible, 
 perhaps a degrading thing. My father, as I 
 told you last summer at Setauket, is professor 
 of literature at Manhattan College. I was 
 educated in Europe, am supposed to speak 
 three languages besides my own, and have 
 had two years of art training at Munich, yet 
 I am going to be a dressmaker. And why 
 not? Dressmakers earn good wages; their 
 occupation is an eminently respectable one, 
 and I have said to myself If people with no 
 artistic advantage do so well at the trade, why 
 cannot a woman of education, and the finer 
 feeling that comes from birth and training, 
 elevate dressmaking into a fine art, and find 
 dignity as well as emolument in the calling? 
 So I decided to learn dressmaking. At pres- 
 ent I am assistant to Madame Poplin, and 
 next April papa has promised to find me a 
 parlor or studio, as we are going to call it on 
 Madison Avenue, where I can open for myself. 
 Some of my girl friends think the idea horrid, 
 and some of them think it just wise and splen- 
 did. I have not told any of the fellows yet 
 that is, you are the first of them and now, I 
 wonder," she concluded a little wistfully, 
 "what you will think of it."
 
 AND A FEW FIBS. 155 
 
 His open hand was stretched out to her in 
 an instant. 
 
 "Why, what is there to think," he said 
 warmly, "except that you are doing a wise, 
 brave, self-helpful thing?" 
 
 "I am very pleased to hear you say so," she 
 said simply. "I am always home on Wednes- 
 day evenings, Mr. Van Kensselaer, as you 
 know, and I want to hear you sing. I under- 
 stand too, that you play excellently well on 
 the banjo. Come up, and bring your instru- 
 ment, won't you?" 
 
 The young man nervously fastened and un- 
 fastened a glove, looking at the button as though 
 it were a problem in attire; then straightened 
 himself up bravely. 
 
 "Miss Cruger," he said, with a little gulp 
 in his voice, "you have heard me both sing 
 and play." 
 
 "1?" she exclaimed. "Why, surely not; 
 unless it was unknowingly at Setauket." 
 
 "No," he said; "1 do not mean there. 
 You heard me last Thursday." 
 
 "Last Thursday?" she repeated. "I do. 
 not comprehend." 
 
 "No," he said. "I do not suppose you do, 
 But you will. I am troubled with a big name, 
 and very little else," he went on. "My 
 friends have laughed when I have talked about 
 working, but I know better than they the 
 necessities of the case, and I determined to 
 help myself. I used to be a prominent mem^ 
 ber of the Yale Banjo and Glee Club, and one 
 day I spoke to a fellow who knew another
 
 15G SEVEN SMILES 
 
 fellow in the theatrical business, and I got an 
 engagement to sing and play at St. Joseph's 
 Hall, where you heard me last Thursday 
 night, for I saw you in front. Not a soul of 
 my set knows it, not even my mother, but I 
 shall tell you, Miss Cruger, I am Billy Brown, 
 the King Vocalist and Monarch of the Banjo." 
 
 This time it was the girl who put out her 
 hand. 
 
 "You poor boy," she said, in her gentle 
 voice and dear me, what a particularly gen- 
 tle voice she had. 
 
 "Well, as to being poor," he replied, with 
 a smile, half-doleful, half-whimsical, "I am 
 earning fifty dollars a week." 
 
 "Oh, are you, indeed?" she cried. "Why, 
 I am only getting twenty dollars a week 
 with Madame Poplin." 
 
 "Well," he said cheerily, "fifty and twenty 
 are seventy, I believe." 
 
 "Yes," she said, "and I must be as readily 
 arithmetical, for it is ten minutes past one, 
 and I must take my one from this two and 
 tun away to work." 
 
 "Just one minute, Miss Cruger," he said, 
 putting out an arm to bar her passage. "Look 
 up, please. I always did think you had the 
 sweetest eyes in New York, and used to long 
 to say so at Setauket. Look, Miss Cruger; 
 look, Ethel; look, dear. Ah, that's it. I 
 want to see your eyes looking up just like 
 that." 
 
 "And what for, pray?" she asked, a little 
 laintly.
 
 AND A FEW FIBS. 157 
 
 "Because I want to look down into them, 
 and ask them and their dear, brave, little 
 owner a question." 
 
 She did not ask what the question was, but 
 theie was a tremulousness about the lower lip 
 that made his heart tremulous, too, for the 
 very joy of seeing it, and so he went on: 
 
 "Ethel, if I were to marry a dressmaker, 
 would you marry a nigger minstrel?" 
 
 But she slipped by him and ran upstairs. 
 Then, when halfway up, she turned and 
 beamed upon him, until the motes in the air 
 danced as in a sunbeam. 
 
 "Come down at five and take me home, 
 dear," she said.
 
 THE MAGIC MIRROR. 
 
 I AM sure I do not know whether I did 
 right, or whether, indeed, I am responsible 
 for what happened, but you shall be the judge. 
 Besides which, it will be quite a comfort to 
 tell you the truth about the awful affair. 
 
 When Lieutenant Gaynor came home last 
 January from a three years' cruise on the 
 Asiatic Station we were not engaged to be mar- 
 ried, but we had been sweethearts all our lives. 
 As you know, I had lived with his mother 
 and sister at Culpepper ever since my parents 
 died, and was daughter and sister to them in 
 all but the name; and that was to be given me 
 as soon as Roy said the word. So when he 
 swung himself off the car steps, before the 
 train had really stopped, he held out his arms 
 to us all as we ran down the platform to meet 
 him, and took us all in and kissed us all alike. 
 Ko, not all alike either, for he kissed his 
 mother and me again, after the general wel- 
 come; and while he saluted them by name, he 
 had for me a tenderer title. 
 
 "Not a day older, mother not a day!" he 
 sang out in what we used to call his northwest 
 voice, as soon as we were all in the dear little 
 wainscoted sitting-room. "Here you are fifty 
 -^fifty what is it now? fifty-five, and not a
 
 AND A FEW FIBS. 159 
 
 gray hair in your head, while I'm getting to 
 look like a badger about the temples." 
 
 But that was not so, for his hair was as 
 brown as mine; and, indeed, why should it 
 not be, when he was only twenty -nine? But 
 it was ever the way of Koy not to be serious 
 about himself. 
 
 "And, sis," he went on, "you're bidding 
 fair to be as good-looking as mother, and 
 that's all you want. I'll wager a month's pay 
 that I don't find you here when I get buck 
 from my next cruise. Oh, I hear things, even 
 if you don't write but once every six months!" 
 
 "Well," said Tirisa, "I knew Jean was 
 writing you two letters by each mail, and I 
 thought that was enough from one post 
 office." 
 
 "Yes, dear heart," said Roy, coming over 
 to where I sat, "you are the best and most 
 forgiving of correspondents, and I am the 
 worst and most exacting." 
 
 From this you will see that the affectionate 
 relations existing between us then were ac- 
 cepted by us all, even if they were not quite 
 formally defined. 
 
 After dinner Roy opened his big leather 
 portmanteau and brought out his "presents." 
 FQY his mother there was a lovely India shawl 
 and a pair of Chinese porcelain candlesticks; 
 for Tirisa, a set of Ceylonese silver toilet cups 
 and trays; and for me, two unset rubies, a 
 cobweb scarf of India silk, and a mirror. 
 
 "You know, folks," said Roy, after he had 
 been hugged again to suffocation point, and
 
 160 SEVEN SMILES 
 
 was sitting smoking his cigar, with us three 
 women grouped about him, "Uncle Sam's pay 
 schedule does not allow much spending 
 money " 
 
 He was summarily shut off at this point by 
 a trio of protests and a threat that if another 
 word were said on that subject all the presents 
 would be sent back to the ship. 
 
 "Allow me to say, then," he went on, "that 
 your mirror, Jean, requires a word of explana- 
 tion. Let me have it a moment, dear." 
 
 I handed it to him, and he continued: 
 
 "'Tis not much to look at, you see; yet 
 that's all a mirror is for, isn't it? I knew 
 you liked odd things, Jean, and so one day at 
 Cairo, after we had come through the canal, I 
 went down among the bazaars on a still hunt. 
 The trouble was, there were too many things 
 to choose from. Such a collection of the 
 beautiful and the odd as those old squatting 
 fellows had I never saw. Oh, have no fear 
 I'm not going to try any catalogue work. I'll 
 leave that for story writers. I was just about 
 giving it up as a bad case of embarrassment of 
 riches when I felt some one tap me on the 
 shoulder. Now, mind, this is true business. 
 I turned; there was no one there, but right 
 across the narrow ally into which I had wan- 
 dered was a little black box of a shop, against 
 the dark background of which there stood out 
 a long white thing with two bright points at 
 the top of it, like two lightning bugs on a 
 flour sack. The two lightning bugs seemed 
 to grow larger and larger, and I walked over
 
 AND A FEW FIBS. 161 
 
 to see what in thunder the whole thing was, 
 when it resolved itself into a big white beard 
 and a pair of Syrian eyes, both the property 
 of an old gentleman in a black robe the shop- 
 keeper, in fact. I don't know for the life of 
 me why, but when I got close to him I felt 
 that it was the proper thing to bow and say, 
 'You called me, sir; what is your pleasure?' 
 So, like a fool, I said it. Then there came a 
 hole in the beard, and a voice said: 'My lord 
 wants something strange and small, but 
 good." : 
 
 "How did you know what he said, Roy?" I 
 asked. 
 
 "Oh, bless you, he spoke English quite as 
 well as I do, and almost as well as you. 
 'Why, yes,' I said; 'I was looking for some- 
 thing of that sort something a little better 
 than a white metal spoon and not quite as ex- 
 pensive as a gold umbrella jar.' The old fel- 
 low nodded his head, and said, 'For a lady.' 
 He didn't ask that, you understand; he made 
 the statement. I said 'Yes.' Tor a lady 
 whom you love and who is not your sister,' 
 said the old fellow." 
 
 "Now, Hoy," said his mother, laughing, 
 "you are treating us to a sample of your yarn- 
 spjnning." 
 
 "It's the gospel truth, mother, every word 
 of it," said Roy; and he said it so seriously 
 that his mother forbore to laugh further, 
 while Tirisa and I were already impressed by 
 his story. 
 
 "I didn't quite like the assertiveness of the
 
 1G2 SEVEN SMILES 
 
 old fellow," he continued. "In fact, I 
 thought it the rather impudent trick of a sly 
 salesman, so I snorted out something you 
 wouldn't care about hearing, when the old 
 fellow stretched out his hand with the palm 
 turned straight toward me, as he said: 'Let 
 not my lord be angry, for my age is great, and 
 age has its experience as well as its privileges. 
 Here is what you seek.' With that he put 
 his hand under his cloak and brought out this 
 mirror. As you see, it certainly is curious 
 enough, and I asked him the price. 'Five 
 thousand francs,' he said. 'Good-day,' said 
 I. 'Five hundred francs,' he said. 'Good- 
 day,' I said again. 'Five francs,' he said. 
 'I'll take it at that,' said I. 'Nay, my son,' 
 said the old fellow, 'its price is five thousand 
 francs, and I cannot sell it for less. But I 
 will make you a present of it, provided you 
 give me five francs for these photographs of 
 Karnak, where it was found.' So I paid him 
 the five francs and got the photographs and 
 mirror." 
 
 "Well, of all Cheap John tricks," ex- 
 claimed Tirisa, "that is the shrewdest I ever 
 heard of! Only think of the cunning of the 
 Oriental in the whole transaction!" 
 
 "Wait a bit," said Koy. "My story is not 
 quite done. I nut the mirror in my breast 
 pocket and carried the photographs in my 
 hand. They were those cheap folding things 
 with a red cloth cover, and as I walked along 
 the whole inside of the little album slipped 
 out and fell to the ground. When putting
 
 AND A FEW FIDS. 163 
 
 the leaves back I noticed that the pictures 
 were not views of Karnak at all, but some 
 street scenes in Paris. That made me mad, 
 and I turned back to have it out with the old 
 fellow, even if he had been Methuselah him- 
 self. Now, mind you, I had not walked 
 ten paces away from the old fellow's place 
 when I made the discovery of the cheat, yet 
 I couldn't find it. There was the armor 
 bazaar where I had been hopelessly gazing at 
 the superabundance of things when I felt that 
 queer tap on the back, and opposite it was the 
 alley where I had seen the white beard and 
 the lightning-bug eyes, but there wasn't the 
 faintest sign of either, or of the old fellow, or 
 of the shop even. I rubbed my eyes, ran up 
 the alley, and found myself in a small square 
 with a Turkish cafe on one side filled with our 
 fellows chaffing a lot of smudge-eyed girls. It 
 was the quickest case of 'Now you see it and 
 now you don't' on record, I reckon." 
 
 "He knew you would come back as soon as 
 you found out the cheat," I said, "and so 
 quietly decamped." 
 
 "Folded his tent like the Arab, and all that 
 sort of thing, I suppose," said Eoy. "I don't 
 know, I'm sure. I haven't any explanation 
 to. make. It's the queerest thing that ever 
 happened to me, and I can assure you I never 
 opened my locker, where I put the mirror, 
 without a feeling that I'd find that it had dis- 
 appeared also. However, there you have it, 
 Jean, story and all." 
 
 "But what about the touch on the shoulder,
 
 164 SEVEN SMILES 
 
 and the what shall I call it the mind-read- 
 ing conversation?" asked Roy's mother with 
 a slightly troubled face. 
 
 "I can only repeat what I said just now, 
 mother," he replied. "I have no explanation 
 to offer." 
 
 Naturally enough we all examined the mir- 
 ror pretty closely after this. It was of brass, 
 about eight inches long and quite heavy. 
 The handle and frame were of one piece, the 
 handle a plain round shaft plain except for 
 five slight indentations, or rather grooves^ into 
 which the fingers and thumb naturally slipped 
 when holding it. The frame was circular, 
 with a roughly cut arabesque running round 
 it. 
 
 In the face of the mirror lay its oddity, for 
 it was really nine mirrors a sun and eight 
 satellites. The sun, or central mirror, was a 
 polished disk of metal and occupied the larger 
 part of the frame, while the eight satellites 
 were grouped at equal distances around it. 
 But the satellites were of a slightly complex 
 form, for while each was also a polished metal 
 disk, over it was fastened a triangle of some 
 dull black material. The back was plain, ex- 
 cept that here again were the five shallow 
 grooves for the fingers and thumb. 
 
 "Well, what's the verdict?" asked Boy, 
 when we three women had examined the mir- 
 ror separately and in concert. 
 
 "So far at the mirror goes/' said Tirisa, "I 
 can buy a better one in Culpepper for twenty- 
 five cents."
 
 AND A FEW FIBS. 165 
 
 "From what Roy has told us of the way in 
 which he got it," said the mother, "I should 
 say that it is a cheap copy of an antique." 
 
 "And I think, dear," I said, "that it's the 
 quaintest, oddest looking-glass that ever a 
 girl had." 
 
 "Except the Karnak belle who was the 
 
 original owner," said Roy, with his hearty 
 laugh. "And now I'm going to turn in, just 
 to see how my old bed feels after three years 
 
 oing to turn in, just 
 eels 
 of bunking it in a cupboard." 
 
 Roy stayed with us three days, and then a 
 dispatch came, and he said he had to go away. 
 He tore up the dispatch as soon as he had 
 read it and threw the pieces in the fire, and 
 stood looking into the big open grate until 
 the last piece of paper was a film of ash. His 
 mother and I were in the room at the time, 
 and we both asked him anxiously if there was 
 auything the matter. 
 
 "No," he said, "except that I have to go 
 away for a day or two." 
 
 "To the ship?" I inquired. 
 
 "Yes," he said, "to the ship." 
 
 After he had gone I went upstairs, and 
 feeling uneasy and low-spirited over his de- 
 parture, I set to the essentially feminine task 
 of "looking over things." In the course of 
 doing so I settled on places for Roy's presents. 
 The mirror I decided to keep on my dressing 
 table, and laying it there with the face down, 
 I rested my hand on it with the fingers and 
 thumb in the hollows of the back which I
 
 166 SEVEN SMILES 
 
 have spoken of. As I did so, and was thinking 
 hard and not too happily of the fashion of 
 Eoy's going away, I pressed nervously on the 
 mirror, only to withdraw my hand quickly 
 the next instant, and with a cry, as I felt be- 
 neath my fingers a stir and a tingle as though 
 I had touched an electric battery. Then I 
 reproached myself for foolish nervousness and 
 replaced my hand on the mirror. 
 
 There was no movement either of or within 
 it. 
 
 Then I pressed heavily, and instantly be- 
 neath my fingers I felt once more the buzzing 
 stir. 
 
 Something was moving within the mirror. 
 
 Roy's story of the mysterious salesman in 
 Cairo came back to me with a rush, and I was 
 about to call Tirisa to come quickly to look 
 into this new wonder, when a feeling of utter 
 and abject annihilation of will overwhelmed 
 me, and in that state I crept miserably to bed. 
 
 In the clear morning light I rated myself 
 for giving way to foolish delusions and dream- 
 ing out a fag-end of Roy's fairy tale. My 
 purpose was, however, to thrust the mirror 
 out of sight, but as soon as I touched it an- 
 other overwhelming change of mood crept 
 over me, as on the previous night, and blotted 
 out my will. Breakfast, usually such a cheer- 
 ful meal, I recollect only as a misty function, 
 but when that was over the distressing annul- 
 ment of volition left me as suddenly as it had 
 come. In its place I was conscious of a 
 steady, bright plan of action whose contempla-
 
 AND A FEW FIBS. 167 
 
 tion gave me a glow of pleasure; and follow- 
 ing it, and the secrecy it seemed to entail, I 
 ran upstairs, slipped on my ulster, put the 
 mirror in my pocket and climbed the hill to 
 see my father's old teacher, Professor Glen- 
 denning. After receiving my regular scold- 
 ing for not coming to see him oftener, I 
 brought out the mirror, told him how it had 
 come into my possession, and asked him what 
 he thought of it. 
 
 "Well, I don't exactly know what to say," 
 he replied, after looking it over curiously and 
 carefully. "It surely is not Chinese; it may 
 be Indian, although it is quite likely it was 
 made in Birmingham, England. No, I'm 
 wrong. Here we are it's Persian." 
 
 "And how do you know that, professor?" I 
 asked eagerly. 
 
 "Well," said, the professor, "I can 't say 
 for sure that it was made in Persia, but here 
 is certainly an inscription in Persian." And 
 he pointed to the running pattern around the 
 frame of the mirror, which we had untechnic- 
 ally called an arabesque. 
 
 "What does it say?" I asked. 
 
 "Let us first see where it begins," he said; 
 "and I don't know, even if I find the begin- 
 ning, whether I can translate it. I'm pretty 
 rusty in my Orientals at present, and this is 
 Persian of an early epoch, if I mistake not. 
 Ah! here we are: 'The eyes of me,' that is, 
 'my eyes, run into 'or 'over all parts/ or 'cor- 
 ners of the earth, and destruction,' that is, 
 'my annihilation' or 'my destruction, lighteth
 
 168 S&rstf SMILES 
 
 after/ no, 'lighteth on the traitor or false.* 
 Now, then, let me try again, and a little more 
 metrically. It says: 
 
 ' My eyes run into all parts of the earth, 
 And my destruction lighteth on the false one.' 
 
 That's pretty close to it. Quite a terrible 
 text, isn't it?" 
 
 "And what do you suppose it means?" I 
 asked nervously. 
 
 "Oh," replied the professor, "these texts 
 are characteristic of the ancient Persian 
 methods. They invested all inanimate ob- 
 jects, and especially articles of their own 
 handicraft, with strange attributes. A very 
 remarkable people, my dear; and you have a 
 very remarkable object there, too. Take an 
 old man's advice, and put it away carefully." 
 
 All day long the portentous text kept ring- 
 ing in my ears; not exactly ringing either, for 
 the words seemed rather to be shouted into 
 them. 
 
 No message came from Roy for any of us 
 that day, and we all said that we did not ex- 
 pect any, because we understood that he had 
 been called away on urgent duty and had no 
 time for home correspondence. I don't know 
 what his mother and sister thought in their 
 heart of hearts, but I know that in mine there 
 was a tremor that kept me from looking these 
 dear ones in the face. The spirit of the mir- 
 ror had hold of me. I saw the threatening 
 text like the handwriting on the wall; the 
 slow, heavy tick of the old clock on the stairs
 
 AND A FEW FIBS. 169 
 
 put itself to the words; and when I got to my 
 room and locked the door I walked straight to 
 my dressing table and placed my fingers in 
 the imprints on the mirror's back. 
 
 Almost immediately a tingling vibration 
 sprang up beneath them. The whir and shock 
 increased until they became almost insupport- 
 able, and then with a sudden dash I seized the 
 handle and brought the burnished face 
 straight up in front of me. 
 
 As true as I am a Christian girl this is what 
 I saw: The face of the mirror, as I have tried 
 to describe, was composed of a central reflec- 
 tor, or sun, while around it were eight smaller 
 reflectors, or satellites, partially covered by 
 black triangles. As I looked I saw that there 
 was a strange movement going on among these 
 satellites. The black triangles were slowly 
 turning from left to right on concealed pivots, 
 while the polished disks beneath seemed to 
 have become merged into a continuous glow- 
 ing band which flashed around the central 
 mirror like a rapidly revolving ribbon of light, 
 turning from right to left. As it circled 
 around it seemed to throw a pulsating nimbus 
 on the central mirror, which remained station- 
 ary, contracting and expanding, and turning 
 in and out on itself like those chromatrope 
 slides that you have seen in a magic lantern. 
 
 As I looked at the miraculous thing I found 
 my fingers settling rigidly into the indenta- 
 tions of the handle, and as the rigidity grew 
 the whizzing of the black triangles increased 
 in velocity; the circle of light rushed the more
 
 170 SEVEN SMILES 
 
 rapidly around the central mirror, and the 
 aureolesqne light seemed to bulge and con- 
 tract with more and more pronounced pulsa- 
 tions, until there was only one quiet and 
 unillumined spot in the center of the mirror, 
 about the size of a silver dollar. The marvel- 
 ous movement of the disks and the vibratory 
 glory seemed to eat their way into my brain 
 and to bind up all senses except that of sight. 
 This sense, on the other hand, became preter- 
 naturally acute, and as my eyes were fixed on 
 the quiet central spot I saw forming therein a 
 tiny picture which had all the distance and 
 soon had all the microscopic clearness of a 
 scene looked at through the wrong end of an 
 opera glass. 
 
 Out of the shadows came at first the 
 white napery of a dinner table, then the 
 lavender of a woman's dress at one side of the 
 table, and then the darker figure of a man at 
 the other side. Soon i saw that the woman 
 was beautiful, but of a wicked beauty, and 
 then then I saw that the man was Roy. So 
 marvelously distinct was the miniature scene 
 that I could see that each of the two figures 
 held a wineglass raised, and that when the 
 glasses had been drained the two figures leaned 
 across the table until their wine-wet lips met 
 together in a kiss. 
 
 An agonizing flame of amazement, grief and 
 anger blazed up within me at the sight, and 
 with a bitter cry I brought the mirror down 
 with all my might on the marble corner of the 
 bureau.
 
 AND A FEW FIBS. 171 
 
 There was a blinding flash as it flew to 
 pieces, a rattling report, and I fell to the floor 
 us though I had been shot. 
 
 And at that wretched hour and minute, as 
 you have heard, the door of the room where 
 the miserable rendezvous was being kept was 
 thrown open and a bullet from the hand of an 
 outraged husband and brother officer was sent 
 through Roy Gaynor's heart.
 
 HOW I HAD 'EM! 
 
 A BLUE-RIBBON ROMANCE. 
 
 "GUESS you're a little sick, ain't yeh?" 
 
 "I do-o-n'tfe-e-e-l 'xact' ligh-h-h-t," I quav- 
 ered, trying my utmost to get the better of a 
 severe fit of trembling that had suddenly come 
 upon me. 
 
 "Swallow this," said the bartender, "and 
 then go home and lie down for an hour." 
 
 I tried to take the glass up firmly, but, 
 strive as I might, I could not succeed, even 
 with both hands, in raising the liquor steadily 
 to my lips. Teeth and glass-clicked together 
 like castanets, and instead of replacing the 
 tumbler on the counter, it slipped from my 
 shaking fingers, and was shattered on the 
 marble floor. 
 
 "Th-h-at's bad-d," I said. 
 
 "Never mind, Mr. Ralph," said the bar- 
 tender, "accidents will happen, you know. 
 Shall I call a hack?" 
 
 "N-o-o," I protested. "It's o-o-nly a little 
 touch o-o-f-f a-g-u-u-e, I think." 
 
 When I got on Montgomery Street the sun 
 was shining warmly, and the shivering soon 
 
 Eassed off. I felt a trifle uneasy and nervous, 
 owever, so walked down toward Sutter Street, 
 intending to take the cars and go home for a 
 quieting nap.
 
 AND A FEW FIBS. 173 
 
 When I had got as far as Sacramento Street, 
 happening to look round, I was surprised to 
 see Harry following. Good fellow and excel- 
 lent bartender as Harry is, I took exception 
 to his dogging me in that fashion; especially 
 as he wore such an unpleasant grin that it 
 made his ears stick up pointedly, and his 
 mouth stretch up his face until the corners 
 met those of his eyes. I turned frequently 
 after first observing him, and every time I 
 turned, there he was, just behind me, and 
 grinning pertinaciously. It was such an un- 
 pleasant grin that I felt it boring into the 
 middle of my back. So, to distract his at- 
 tention, I took off my cravat and hung it in 
 the iron ring of a hitching post, tying it in a 
 firm knot. 
 
 He must have taken some time unfastening 
 this, for I had reached Sutter Street and got 
 on the cars before he reappeared. My great- 
 est fear was lest he should get on the dummy 
 with me, and I am afraid I made too open an 
 exhibition of such a sentiment, for a gentle- 
 man sitting next me remarked to his compan- 
 ion that he thought I was going to have a fit. 
 
 "No, sir," I said, turning to him, "I'm not 
 going to have a fit; but I dread the appear- 
 anc.e of a person who has grossly insulted me, 
 and with whom I do not wish to quarrel. He 
 has very much excited me." 
 
 Here the car moved up the hill, and I be- 
 gan to congratulate myself upon having got 
 rid of Harry, when whom should I see but 
 that fellow quickly turning the corner, and
 
 174 SEVEN SMILES 
 
 with a more impudent grin on his face than 
 ever. He saw me, and hurried up the street 
 at a run. Quick as light J dragged off my 
 collar, and standing up in the dummy, ilung 
 it on to the sidewalk. He stooped to pick it 
 up, and then trotted on again. ]n despera- 
 tion, I Hung off my hat at the persistent dog, 
 and don't know what else would have followed 
 if the car had not then stopped, and I was 
 able to get quickly off and into the house 
 without the fellow reaching me. 
 
 However, I took the precaution to lock and 
 bolt the front door, and was setting a hall- 
 chair against it as an extra barrier, when Tot 
 my sister coming quietly down the stairs, 
 asked what the matter was. 
 
 I told her of the watch that had been kept 
 on me, and at the same time tried to explain 
 the peculiar, indefinable sense of horror that 
 Harry's conduct had excited within me. 
 
 "I can't understand it," I concluded, "for 
 I had always imagined him to be a quiet, non- 
 interfering fellow." 
 
 "Well, Ben," said my sister, taking hold of 
 my hand, ''you're free from intrusion now, at 
 any rate. You're a bit feverish; suppose you 
 go and rest awhile. Tom will soon be home 
 and then you can talk it over." 
 
 I went upstairs and threw myself on the 
 bed, but failed to fall asleep. To the con- 
 trary, indeed, I was miserably wakeful, and 
 lay there with every sense acutely strained. 
 That of sight must have been particularly so, 
 lor I soon noticed what a three years' occu-
 
 AND A FEW FIBS. 175 
 
 pancy of the room, and a somewhat longer 
 familiarity with its contents, had failed to 
 show me. 
 
 On the mantelpiece at th.3 foot of the bed, 
 and exactly facing me as I lay, were two col- 
 ored wax images of Mary and Joseph, stand- 
 ing under glass shades. As I looked at them, 
 to my intense surprise I saw Mary begin slowly 
 moving her arms up and down, as though 
 dandling the infant Saviour that lay therein. 
 Joseph stretched out his arms, and then both 
 figures gravely and slowly walked out through 
 the glass shades and met in the center of the 
 mantelpiece. There they stood for some 
 time, Mary yet dandling the babe, and Joseph 
 looking fondly on both mother and child. 
 The beautiful mechanism of these automata 
 called forth my extremest admiration, 
 although I could not get over a certain sense 
 of fear, if not of horror. 
 
 From the motion of their lips, conversation 
 was evidently going on; so I raised myself 
 into a sitting posture to listen. Strangely 
 enough, the images moved back under their 
 respective shades as I moved forward, and 
 when I sprang on to the floor and ran to the 
 mantelpiece, they were as waxy and as expres- 
 sionless as they had been until that day. 
 
 I threw myself down again, in a state of 
 mingled surprise and fear, and had been quiet 
 but a minute when the machinery once more 
 seemed to be set in motion; the figures again 
 moved to the center of the mantelpiece, and
 
 176 SEVEN SMILES 
 
 the marvel of the automata was gone over 
 again. 
 
 While watching the delicate movements of 
 the statues, the bell rang for dinner; and get- 
 ting up, I washed and went downstairs. 
 
 "How do you feel now, Ben?" Tot had 
 asked me as I entered the room. 
 
 "Oh, I feel all right," I had said; "only 
 something very queer happened to me just 
 now. Why hadn't you told rne those waxen 
 images on my mantelpiece moved?" 
 
 Tot's face flushed up suddenly, and then 
 turned very white. 
 
 "Well I I didn't think of it," she said. 
 
 Here Tom came charging up the front 
 steps. Tot went out of the room to let him 
 in, and stood talking in the hall for a minute. 
 Then they came in together. 
 
 "Hillo, Ben," said Tom, in his cheery 
 voice; "back from work?" 
 
 "Yes," said Tot; "Ben hasn't been feeling 
 quite well this afternoon, so he came home to 
 lie down for an hour. And would you believe 
 it, Tom, he has found out that those wax 
 figures on his bedroom mantelpiece move 
 about and converse?" 
 
 "Why, yes," said Tom to me; "I thought 
 you knew that before." 
 
 After dinner, instead of going out, I got 
 Tot to give me a little whisky, and soon went 
 to bed. I was still too shaky to go to sleep, 
 but closed my eyes and tried my best to drop 
 off. Opening them after one of these useless 
 wooings, what was my horror to find that I
 
 had a bedfellow. And such a loathsome, 
 awful bedfellow! 
 
 I lay a minute, unable to move, looking 
 into its great green goggle eyes, which winked 
 and blinked with a devilish humor I had never 
 seen equaled. It was lying outside the bed- 
 clothes, its two hideously distorted legs mov- 
 ing restlessly with a whip-like motion. Its 
 body was fat and bloated, and its podgy arms 
 ended in two claws. Its ears were imp- 
 ishly pointed, and instead of a nose there 
 was only an irregular hole, while its bloodless, 
 mottled under lip fell far down on a peaked, 
 pinched chest. My dread of the fearful being 
 was extreme, yet 1 was doubtful of its reality 
 of its vitality, rather and imagined it some 
 horrible grotesque manufacture of painted 
 rubber, placed there in joke by Tom, and 
 which moved with the breeze from the win- 
 dow. If so, what a miserable joke! Still, I 
 favored this idea in preference to a belief in 
 the living existence of the beast; so, with a 
 great effort, and trembling in every limb, I 
 stole a hand gently toward the knotted leg 
 that was nearest. My hand touched it! 
 Clammy as a death-sweat! It was sentient, 
 though, and flung down a claw to grip my 
 haiid. With a scream I bounded from the 
 bed and sprang from the room. Tot and Tom 
 heard me come flying down the stairs, and ran 
 to ask the matter. My blanched face and 
 mumbling lips told the story with great plain- 
 ness, I guess; and it is well they did, for I
 
 178 SEVEN SMILES 
 
 could utter no word, but sank down at the 
 foot of the stairs, pointing behind me. 
 
 "What is it? What have you seen, Ben?" 
 asked Tot. 
 
 "Upstairs on my bed kill it!" I gasped. 
 
 Tom seized a big stick from the corner, and 
 went quickly up into my room, whence I 
 heard the sound of heavy blows. 
 
 "There," said he, coming down, "I guess 
 that's finished him." 
 
 "Now, Ben," said Tot, "I wouldn't go up 
 there again for a little while. I'll lay a pillow 
 and clothes on the lounge, and you can lie 
 there for the night." 
 
 "Anything, to get away from that thing!" 
 I said. 
 
 They went to bed shortly after, and I set- 
 tled myself back for rest and forgetfulness. 
 Both I imagined near me, when both were 
 driven away by a visitor. The first signal of 
 his approach was the jerking of the carpet by 
 the side of the lounge, and the gradual rising 
 of a spuare patch. I leaned over, and judge 
 of my astonishment when I saw that the carpet 
 covered a trapdoor, which, now open, revealed 
 a broad staircase leading down, down, further 
 than my sight could follow. The steps were 
 of some black material, wood or stone, I could 
 hardly make out which. The various flights 
 were brightly illumined by some unperceived 
 means. I accepted the existence of this sub- 
 terranean labyrinth with astonishing com- 
 posure, although that all-pervading sense of 
 dull horror which had been with me for the
 
 AND A FEW FIBS. 179 
 
 last few hours was on the tiptoe of a scream- 
 ing pitch. I kept back the impulse, however, 
 and was leaning over, peering down the stair- 
 case, when I heard some one coming up them. 
 In the far perspective I saw the figure of a 
 man mounting, and as he came nearer I saw 
 him to be a gentleman in a full suit of even- 
 ing black. 
 
 "Some friend of Tom's,'"' I surmised, "who 
 knows of and uses this private entrance. I 
 wish they hadn't gone to bed." Here the 
 gentleman came up the last steps, and stood 
 wiping his face. 
 
 "Phew!" he said at last; "warm evening." 
 
 " 'Tis, rather," 1 said. 
 
 "Not so warm here, though, as it is down 
 there," said he, smiling. 
 
 He was a good-looking man, neat in figure 
 and apparel, pleasant in voice and address. A 
 striking peculiarity of the gentleman was that 
 his face varied and changed so remarkably as 
 to make it impossible to guess his age or fix 
 his features on the memory. At one moment 
 I could have sworn he seemed as old as Adam, 
 and the very next his face was as young and 
 fresh as Tot's. At this breath he was wicked 
 and black; at the next he was as fair as a 
 schoolgirl. 
 
 "I'm sorry Tom has gone to bed," I re- 
 marked at length. 
 
 "Don't mention it," said the stranger; 
 "fact of the matter is, I came to see you, 
 Ben." 
 
 "You know me?"
 
 1 80 SB VEX SMILES 
 
 "Oh, well, I have heard you frequently 
 spoken of." 
 
 "I had no idea that trapdoor was there," I 
 said, after a pause, during which the stranger 
 took off his hat and sat down beside me on 
 the lounge. 
 
 "Why, Ben, man," said he, smiling cheer- 
 fully, "there's some such entrance as this" 
 here he closed the trapdoor with his foot 
 "in every house in town; ay, not even ex- 
 cepting the churches. I think I may confi- 
 dently say that I am on easy visiting terms 
 with every family in San Francisco." 
 
 Not to know Wilkes was not to be known, 
 so I suggested that I remembered having seen 
 my visitor's face somewhere before. 
 
 "Well, I fancy so," said he, laughing gayly. 
 "You know me well enough now, though 
 mind you, Ben, I don't mean to say you won't 
 know me better." 
 
 "Would you mind telling me your name?" 
 I asked. "I don't exactly recall it." 
 
 "With pleasure," said he, taking a card 
 from a crimson leather case. "Let me pre- 
 mise, however," said he, toying with the card, 
 "that I am an individual whom many will 
 warn you against, and that while I do not lack 
 admirers and followers, I, at the same time, 
 have to complain of an infinity of backbiters 
 and slanderers beggars, my dear Ben, who 
 revile me in the open street and embrace me 
 in the corner. Permit me." 
 
 I took the slim slip of pasteboard, glanced
 
 AND A FEW FIBS. 181 
 
 at the name, and read in the most delicate of 
 script: 
 
 THE DEVIL. 
 
 "The devil!" I said. 
 
 "You use the name as though it were no 
 stranger, Ben. It came 'trippingly from the 
 tongue.' ' 
 
 "Only as an exclamation, I assure you," I 
 hastened to say. 
 
 "Pshaw! Don't explain or apologize, my 
 dear fellow." 
 
 "And the place you come up from is " 
 
 "Exactly," said he, "is hell." 
 
 "But I thought there was no such place," I 
 persisted. 
 
 "Converted to the new and easy doctrine of 
 non-existence, eh? The comfortable preach- 
 ing of that lawyer-colonel has made me his 
 warmest friend, Ben; how warm, he'll find out 
 some day. But, instead of our wasting time, 
 discussing theories, suppose we put the 
 matter instantly to the test. Come down 
 with me for a short time." Here he threw 
 open the trapdoor. 
 
 "No, thank you," I said; "time enough for 
 that. I'm in no hurry." 
 
 "Oh, you shall come up again," said he. 
 "Still I won't press you. I'll show you a 
 trick or two at cards and then I must he 
 leaving." 
 
 With that he took a pack from his pocket,
 
 182 SEVEN SMILES 
 
 and handling the pasteboards with the dexter- 
 ity of an expert, he "did" some of the most 
 remarkable things with cards I ever saw or 
 expect to see again. 
 
 "There," said he at last, "you won't swear 
 by Heller, or Houdin, or Cazeneuve after that, 
 I hope. Take the master as an example, Ben, 
 and not the pupil. Now I must be off, but 
 I'll leave you a companion that you may not 
 too quickly forget me." 
 
 He nodded pleasantly, put his hat on, and 
 went down the staircase a few steps, then re- 
 turning stood half out of the trapdoor, and 
 saying: "Be sure you keep it straight," flung 
 a skeleton lightly on to the bed, went down 
 and closed the door after him. 
 
 As soon as the devil had gone the control 
 which I had managed to keep over myself 
 completely died out, and I was seized with a 
 violent access of shivering. So violent was it 
 that the bed shook, and with it my bony bed- 
 fellow. The articulated joints rattled lustily 
 together. Its grisly knees were drawn up to 
 its fleshless jaws, and its gaunt arms flapped 
 about like the sails of an old, gust-blown 
 windmill. I immediately remembered what I 
 had been told about keeping it straight. With 
 a sickening feeling of repulsion, I placed my 
 hands on its knees, and tried to press them 
 straight. They were fixed and immovable. I 
 threw the blanket over them and rested my 
 weight on them, pressing and striving to 
 straighten them out. They would give a 
 little, but directly I relaxed in the faintest,
 
 AND A FEW FIBS. 183 
 
 back flew all the limbs with the sharp click of a 
 steel trap. Trial after trial resulted in the 
 same unpleasant failure, and with a groan I 
 lay back for a moment breathless and despair- 
 ing. A rattling movement of the dry bones 
 aroused me, and leaning on my elbow I saw 
 by the dimly burning gaslight that my bed- 
 fellow was chuckling and rubbing its dead 
 hands together in a deadly-lively joy at my 
 defeat. 
 
 With a great cry I flung myself upon the 
 grinning death's head. The arms rose to 
 push me back, but I struck out wildly, when 
 they grappled me around the waist. I beat 
 my lists against the grinning jaws, and strove 
 to burst clear of the grip, but I might as well 
 have tried to free myself from the embrace 
 of "The Scavenger's Daughter." 
 
 Out over the lounge we went, up and down, 
 tumbling over the furniture; I panting, curs- 
 ing, yelling; it silent, but persistent. The 
 horrible Thug was pressing my life out. I 
 felt choking, my breath came hot and fast, 
 I gave one ringing yell and fell to the floor, 
 still locked in the fleshless arms, when there 
 was a hurry of feet down the staircase, the 
 door was flung open and Tom ran in. 
 
 J 'For the Lord's sake," said he, "what's the 
 matter? What are you lying there for?" 
 
 "Take it from me," I cried in answer, 
 struggling to be free. "Take it from me." 
 
 "What is it?" said Tom. 
 
 "Why, this skeleton. Turn up the gas and 
 you'll see."
 
 184 SEVEN SMILES 
 
 Tom let a full blaze on. "Ah, now I see," 
 said he; "come oil you rascal." With that 
 he seized my enemy by the heels, dragged it 
 away, and opening the window threw it into 
 the street. 
 
 "There," he added, "he's settled for. Now 
 lie down again; or will you get up and dress, 
 for it's nearly morning?" 
 
 "Thank the powers that's over," I answered. 
 "Tom, that thing nearly killed me. See, I'm 
 shaking like an aspen. I guess I'll lie down 
 for an hour or two and rest a bit." 
 
 "All right," said Tom, "keep quite quiet 
 now, and I'll run up and put on my things 
 and be down here again with you in a jiffy." 
 
 No sooner had he left the room than some 
 one opened the door. I could not see whom 
 exactly, because of a long plank of lumber 
 which hid the bearer. The plank was set up 
 against the ceiling at an acute angle, with the 
 bottom just beside me. Directly it was set, 
 out of the ceiling, and near it came a drop of 
 blood, which swelled and grew until it became 
 of the size and shape of a long grape. This 
 strange growth wavered a little and then 
 broke off at the neck, slid rapidly down the 
 plank, and striking the floor burst open and 
 discovered a gnome, yellow in body, hideous 
 in face, and bearing a small, curved knife in 
 its hand. There was a repetition of the slid- 
 ing noise, another bag struck the floor, and a 
 second gnome joined the first. I turned my 
 eyes then to the ceiling. It was hung thick 
 with ghastly drops of blood dew! The ugly
 
 AND A FEW FIBS. 185 
 
 red drops swelled with more than mushroom 
 growth. They trembled as their bulbous full- 
 ness increased, and I cowered in dismay and 
 fear from the fall of some ripe-looking ones 
 that hung directly over my head. When full 
 blown, however, they shot across the ceiling 
 until they struck the plank, down which there 
 was a continual sliding carried on, and at the 
 foot of which a knife-armed gnome was at 
 every instant being born. Notwithstanding 
 this undeviating direction of the dreadful 
 globules, I could not help ducking under the 
 clothes, moaning and shivering whenever one 
 of the pregnant fungi hung swollen and ugly 
 over my head. 
 
 The room was soon crowded with this elfin 
 brood. They ran over me, pinched me, pricked 
 me with their knives, pulled my hair, perched 
 everywhere, plucked away the clothes, and 
 were as full of mischievous antics as a herd of 
 monkeys. I struggled against my tormentors 
 with the ineffectual struggles of a Gulliver 
 against the Lilliputians. I chased the little 
 yellow demons into corners without avail; they 
 eluded me, and turned on me to sting and jab 
 me like so many bees. I was in the middle of 
 one of these chases when Tom came in, ac- 
 companied by Dr. X. They stood looking at 
 me a moment. 
 
 "How long has he been like this?" said the 
 doctor. 
 
 "How long?" I repeated. "Why, only since 
 these little devils have been pestering iny life 
 out,"
 
 186 SEVEN SMILES 
 
 "Come over here and lie down," said Tom. 
 "The doctor and I will keep you safe." 
 
 I got up and tried to walk there, but the 
 imps clung about my feet, piled themselves 
 up in my path, impeding every step. 
 
 "I can't get there," I groaned, "unless you 
 drive these away." 
 
 At that the doctor and Tom kicked the 
 gnomes vigorously aside and, lifting me up, 
 carried me over and laid me on the couch. 
 There the doctor raised one of my eyelids, 
 dropped it, shook his head gravely, and 
 said: 
 
 "This is very serious." 
 
 "Very serious!" I echoed again. "I should 
 think it was. These fiends will kill me yet." 
 
 "Don't be afraid, old fellow," said Tom. 
 "Nothing shall harm you while we're here." 
 
 As if in mockery 'of this cheering speech 
 the little demons at this moment covered the 
 couch and me like a cloud. I shouted and 
 prayed to have them kept off, but all to no 
 purpose. Beginning at my feet and plying 
 their scalpels with demoniac cruelty, they be- 
 gan to flay me. 
 
 The agony was frightful. Every imp went 
 to work on a piece of skin about an inch 
 square, and every thrust of their knives was 
 like the touch of a hot iron. I roared and 
 screamed, fighting in wild desperation with 
 the operators. Then, to complete my misery, 
 what should Tom and Dr. X. do but fling 
 themselves on me, one at each side, and try 
 to hold me down. Lord, how 1 fought
 
 AND A FEW FIBS. 187 
 
 with them! I seemed to have the strength 
 of a giant. 
 
 "Do you not see they are flaying me?" I 
 shouted, but they only held on the tighter. 
 
 The murderous torture and ineffectual 
 struggle went on. Every bit of skin was torn 
 otf from the toe-tips to the knees, and the 
 pain was as though I was being dipped in 
 molten lead. Tom and the doctor could not 
 feel this, nor did the asses seem to make any 
 endeavor to drive away my torturers. The 
 cruel agony was becoming unbearable, and I 
 felt that if it continued much longer I should 
 surely give way, when the flaying ceased, and 
 the flayers flocked around a larger and more 
 hideous gnome than the others. The chatter- 
 ing, mowing herd stood in the center of the 
 room, crowding one another in their eagerness 
 to get near the center. The bloody lancets 
 were stuck in my torn limbs, but I forgot 
 them and their consequent pain when I saw 
 the impish crowd open and their leader I 
 suppose he was advance toward the couch, 
 trailing behind him a glittering knife tied to 
 a string. 
 
 The knife had a heavy double-edged blade, 
 and seemed as keen as a razor. The string to 
 which it was fastened was a thin silk thread. 
 A terrible fear came upon me. I was to be 
 executed. The restraining 'power of my two 
 friends was like the touch of baby fingers. I 
 rose as though nothing held me down and sat 
 on the side of the couch, waiting, watching. 
 The chief imp waved aside the others, planted
 
 188 SEVEN SMILES 
 
 his legs apart, wound the end of the thread 
 about his hand, and began to swing it. 
 
 "Now," said the swinger, "if the thread 
 breaks, or slips, and the knife strikes him, he 
 will die." 
 
 I accepted the decree as one accepts the 
 inevitable, and resting my elbow on my 
 wounded knees and my head on my hands, 
 prepared to await the end. The knife circled 
 round and round, whistling through the air 
 and making rings of fire. The knife flew 
 faster, the fire circles broadened, deepened, 
 and took prismatic tints. A hopelessly un- 
 controllable trembling seized me, and my eyes 
 seemed starting from their very sockets. 
 Hours seemed to pass, and still the knife flew 
 shrieking through the air. So great had its 
 force become that had the string broken the 
 knife would have flown out as though swung 
 off a lost planet. The fiery circles were living 
 flames, the path of the knife was one Jong 
 shriek. I moaned and shook, and the imps, 
 squatting around, laughed in horrid concert, 
 when something snapped, and the flaming 
 circle was broken. 
 
 Involuntarily 1 bowed my head. Just over 
 it whizzed the knife and was transfixed in the 
 wall. The tension of mind had been too great, 
 too, and with a sigh of unutterable relief I 
 fell senseless to the floor. 
 
 When I came out of what I found to have 
 been a deep sleep, the morning's sun was 
 shining through the windows, Tot sat in an
 
 AND A FEW FIBS. 189 
 
 easy-chair beside me, and I was still lying on 
 the couch. I stirred and Tot rose up. 
 
 "How are you now, Ben?'' 
 
 "All right," I said. All at once I remem- 
 bered what had happened. I looked up for 
 the knife. It had been taken away. Then I 
 thought of my flayed limbs. 
 
 "You have bound up my legs, I suppose, 
 Tot?" I said. "They seem very easy." 
 
 "My poor boy," said she, "there is nothing 
 the matter with your legs. It's all imagina- 
 tion." 
 
 "Imagination!" I said. "I'll show you if 
 it's imagination or not." 
 
 With that I tenderly turned down the 
 clothes. Not a scratch was to be seen. I was 
 thunderstruck. "What does this mean?" I 
 cried. "The moving figures, the tortures, 
 the shapes, the " 
 
 "They all mean, Ben," said she, laying her 
 cool hand on rny head, that you've had " 
 
 "God forgive me," said I. "I know now. 
 It means that I've had 'em!" 
 
 When I told the doctor of the swinging 
 knife, he replied that there was every proba- 
 bility that had the imaginary blade struck me 
 it would have been my actual quietus.
 
 TO FREEZE OUT ENGLAND. 
 
 THE LATEST PLAN OP FENIAN RETRIBUTION. 
 
 "SiiURE now a mon cud see weth half an 
 oye, that ye was wan av us," said the walk- 
 ing delegate. 
 
 He was leaning against the counter of a 
 saloon on Eighth Avenue, into which the New 
 Reporter had ventured in search of material 
 for his article on "The Basting Threads of 
 New York Life." 
 
 Beaming pleasantly through his glasses- 
 he did not really need them, and they made 
 his eyes ache, but he had noticed that "all the 
 other fellows" wore them the New Reporter 
 had invited the walking delegate, with much 
 gentleness, to refresh himself, and in the 
 growing confidence of the conversation that 
 followed the New Reporter had asked his 
 companion if he believed there were any 
 Fenians in New York. At the question the 
 walking delegate pulled his hat still further 
 over his eyes and thrust away his empty glass 
 with a swift motion of the hand. 
 
 "is et betrayed oi am?" he cried, "are ye 
 wanofthim Hessian bludhounds from Scot- 
 land Yard? Be dis and be dat I'm afther 
 t'inkin' that yer Joey Caron himself." 
 
 "Indeed, indeed, you're mistaken," the 
 N.ew Reporter hastened to say, "you're en-
 
 AND A FEW FIBS. 191 
 
 tirely mistaken, I assure you. I am attached 
 to the city department of the Daily Blazer. I 
 don't have regular assignments yet, you know, 
 but I'm getting material together for a great 
 realistic article on 'The Basting Threads of 
 New York Life,' one of those seamy-side 
 things you know, like Ralph and Matthews 
 and Sala and other fellows have written for 
 the magazines." 
 
 The walking delegate tilted his hat forward 
 to a less ferocious angle, brought back his 
 glass with an amicable sweep of the hand and 
 smiled reassuringly. 
 
 And then it was that he had added, "Shure, 
 now, a mon cud see with half an oye that ye 
 wos wan av us," and had winked mysteriously 
 at the bartender. 
 
 "Well," said the New Reporter, "I can't 
 honestly say that I really am a Fenian, you 
 know; but you are of course." 
 
 "Wheshper, wheshper," said the walking 
 delegate, laying one hand with a warning pres- 
 sure on the New Reporter's arm and speaking 
 in the cavernous shelter of the other, "wan of 
 the out and out inner circles, me brave bhoy, 
 Shure it's not Tynan thet's No. 1 it's meself. 
 Did ye niver hear of Captain Francis O'Mal- 
 ley Stevens? Aisy now, an' I'll giv ye the 
 sign " 
 
 Saying which the walking delegate wiped 
 his mouth with the back of his hand, stared 
 fixedly into his empty glass, and then took it 
 up and looked at the New Reporter through 
 it, as though it had been a telescope.
 
 192 SEVEN SMILES 
 
 Even the New Keporter saw the proper 
 thing to do under these circumstances, and 
 when the second "straight" and lemonade 
 had been served he asked if there was any- 
 thing stirring in Fenian circles. 
 
 "Shtirring, es it?" repeated the walking 
 delegate, "ther's always something shtirring. 
 But, mon aloive, ther's the gratest ting a 
 shtirring now that has bin since the days whin 
 Black Teddy blew up Athlone magazine wid 
 a string of safethy fuse rolled round the insoide 
 of his concertayna. But coom ye awver to 
 that little bit of a room beyant there, an' I'll 
 tell ye all about it." 
 
 "Ye must know," the walking delegate be- 
 gan, when they were seated in the private 
 room, "that since thim Rooshins and other 
 haythin have taken to using dinnymoite the 
 Brotherhood have drapped it, and looked 
 around for sorneting else. We've bin 
 moighty quiet while looking, and the English 
 bludhounds and detectives have tought that 
 we had given up the foight. Be gob, we wos 
 niver more in et than we are now. We've 
 found out a schame for cookin' England's 
 goose that bates dinnymoite to smithereens. 
 We're wurrking at et noight and daay, aiid 
 England's as dead as Terrence Mulligan's pig 
 whin his dog ate the bacon. 
 
 "Did ye taake note of what bitther cauld 
 weather they had in England laast whither? 
 Ye did? Well, now, that all shows that the 
 circle has bin wurrking; that the schaame is 
 aUroight."
 
 AND A FEW FIS. 193 
 
 "I don't quite understand yon," said the 
 New Reporter, trying to make notes unob- 
 served on his cuffs underneath the table. "I 
 thought it was unusually cold everywhere last 
 winter. I'm sure it was in New York." 
 
 "Yer roight there, sor, but hist next win- 
 ther England will have et more bitther cauld 
 than she niver knew before, and why? Be- 
 kase, we're frazing bludy England to death!" 
 
 The walking delegate drew back to watch 
 the effect of his announcement, while the New 
 Reporter actually shivered with mingled ex- 
 citement and sympathy. 
 
 "Freezing up England?" he repeated. 
 
 "Jist so," replied the walking delegate. 
 "Framing her to death. How are we doing it, 
 ye'll be afther askin'. Look ye here, now. 
 Ye knaw av coorse, that England wud be as 
 cauld as Graneland if it warn't for wan thing 
 the Goolf Straame. The man that t'ot out 
 this schame tauld the circles that this Goolf 
 Straame was a river of biling hot wather, that 
 pours out of South Amerikay or Bingal, or 
 one of thim hot counthries down there, and 
 that kapes right along the bed of the salt say 
 ocean, until it raches England. He tould 
 us, too, that before the wather got hot loike 
 that, England was jist a big caake of ice, weth 
 nothin' livin' on et but thim white bears, 
 same as ye see out in Cintral Park. Now, 
 thin, says this cliver mon, all ye have to do is 
 to turn off the hot wather from England, and, 
 begorra, she'll go right back to thim ice days, 
 and ivry livin' t'ing will fraze up as hard as
 
 194 8E YEN SMILES 
 
 St. Pathrick's heart whin he had thelast shnaake 
 shet up in his chist. 
 
 " 'Aisy sed,' says some wan of the circles, 
 'but how'll we turn oil' the hot wather?' 
 
 " 'Build a dam across the Goolf Straame,' 
 says the cliver mon. 
 
 " 'Aisy sed, agin,' says that saame wan of 
 thim circles that hed shpoke before, 'but how'll 
 we build a wall acrass a straame that's down at 
 the bottom of the salt say ocean?' Thin this 
 larnid schamer and you'd know him roight 
 away ef I'd only give ye the first letther of his 
 name tould us he'd make wan of thim diving 
 bell t'ings. to carry down the brecks and min 
 and simmint and ladders. And begorra he 
 ded, and last Octhober we staarted the wall. 
 By the tiff of Novimber we had twinty t'ou- 
 sand brecks down and the wather was begin- 
 ning to turn out to the southwist; and by the 
 ind of Novirnber there was forty-foive t'ou- 
 sand brecks in place, and the strame on the 
 other soideof the wall Avas thot cauld thot the 
 masons cud only shtand in et paart of the 
 marnen. Thin the wurrk wus stopped." 
 
 "On account of the weather, 1 suppose?" 
 said the New Reporter, pushing up his cuffs, 
 so that the notes might not be seen. 
 
 "No, indade," said the walking delegate. 
 "It's moighty little the b'ys knew about the 
 weather, laying breck down there at the bot- 
 tom of the salt say ocean. The trut' is the 
 brecks gave out. The b'ys was all patriots 
 to the backbone, and not a hod carrier nor a 
 bell boy iver tuk a ciut. But ye see it tuk
 
 ' AND A FEW FIBS. 195 
 
 thot much of our funds to git the staamer and 
 diving t'ings that we cud only buy a shipload 
 of breck, for et's a peculiar koind of Hacken- 
 sak breck thot we have to use, and the inon 
 that owns the yarrd es a Dootchman, and we 
 daren't trust him, and he ses he'll be dom'd 
 ef he'll trust us. So there ye are. We're 
 takin' up subscreptions, but 'tes slow wurrk, 
 slow wurrk, sor." 
 
 "Well," said the New Reporter, "I have 
 eighty-five cents here, which are entirely at 
 your disposal. It'll buy a brick, at any rate." 
 
 "No," said the walking delegate, with great 
 seriousness, "it will buy jist foive brecks, sor, 
 and if ivry frind of the cause was to come up 
 ayqually handsome we'd have the wall built plum 
 acrass the Goolf Straame, all the hot wather 
 shet off from England, and ivry man jack in 
 et froze dead stiff by the first of next April." 
 
 THE END.
 
 A 000027136