Paragraphs and Pirates.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XLVII, Issue 14, 3 April 1912, Page 49

Paragraphs and Pirates.

By

WALTER PRICHARD EATON.

THOMAS BLAIR was as regular in his habits as Immanuel Kant, The good citizens of Beacon Hill, to be sure, did not set their watches when he passed by, but that was because standard time is more easily procurable in Bos’tqn than it was in Konigsberg. Every day except Sunday, precisely at twelve o’clock, Thomas Blair came out of an old swell-front brick house on Pinekney-street, opposite Louisburg-square, walked up the hill, crossed to Mount Vernon-street, w’alked under the State House to the Hotel Bellevue on Beacon-street, and ate his breakfast in the old cafe down-stairs. Precisely at one o’clock he passed down School-street to the office of the Boston "Star,” a dingy old shambles in a dingy old building on Newspaper Row, greeted the offiee-boys with a merry ‘‘Good-morn-ing” and the managing editor with a grunt, took his seat in his dingy cubbyhole, turned on the green-shaded light, and began to read the snowdrift of foreign and domestic papers heaped on his desk. As he read he snipped out clippings, putting them in a neat pile. At half-past two he pocketed this pile, stullcd a roll of Copy-paper in another pocket, turned off his light, and departed. J his time he went through dirty, odorous Pie Alley, stopping under the ancient sign of the Bell and Hand for a mug of ale. Then he climbed Beacon Hill again to the old Athenaeum, entered its hushed and leather-smelling halls, ascended to the silent reading-room, sat down at the great table, spread out his clipping* and his copy-paper, and began to write. Now and then he would get up, consult the card catalogue, and go off through the stacks in search of a book, returning with it to his seat at the table. Newcomers in the library (for there are newcomers, even in that most Bostonian of all Boston institutions) used to take him for a librarian and ask him for information. At a quarter to six. when the warning came for closing, he pocketed his work again, returned his accumulated pile of books, and went back to Newspaper Row with his copv, and then to dinner at his club.

That was his day’s work. There wag a little variety in his evenings. Sometimes lie went to the theatre to coves a second show” for the dramatic editor, who knew much less about drama than he, but cared more. Every Saturday night in winter he went to the Symphony concerts. On other evenings he sat at . club, where he shone as a wit, in a Hide of well bred and conservative men o middle age, who would never have dared themselves to sav things he did. had they thought of them, but who took delight in hearing him say them. Your Bostonian enjoys his vices vicariously. Alter he left the club, or had written is story” of the play for the morning’s paper, he went home and read till three o clock.

1 homas Blair was forty years old. He had been a newspaper man for twenty J ears —first a reporter, then an editorial "liter, and finally the writer of a daily column of gossip and humour called Paragraphs Pertinent and Impertinent.” 1 his column was the chief literary feature of the paper, it was responsible for half the sales in Cambridge and the Back Hay. It was like no other column in the country. There were no cheap jokes in it- nothing of what we commonly call newspaper humour.” It was packed with F ly wit and erudite allusions. For instance, if somebody in the news of the 'lay had a protracted attack of hiccoughs, Thomas Blair the next morning ’ ame out with a learned treatise on hic'oiiglis. tracing their history back to the ’ark Ages. Let an anti-noise campaign ‘e started, and he was ready with quotations from Sehopcnhuer. Poe and • dolphe Bette. Nor was he lacking in somewhat daring allusions culled from t ie literature of France and eighteenthyentury England which did not lessen ‘he popularity of his column. In his way, he was a learned man: in ms way, he was a witty one. He drew * good salary, as newspaper salaries go In Boston, and pursued the even tenor of his way, at once a part of that most bvaly and pulsing uiachiuc of model u liiu

the newspaper, and withdrawn from active life, in a narrow and rather lonely groove of bachelor existence on Beacon Hill. Both his wit and his methodical lonely existence were really habits. A funny news item was the signal for a bon mot, just as twelve o'clock was the signal for going to breakfast. He was a slave to the paragraph. He saw all life as paragraphs. He was living a mechanical and contented existence. Perhaps, had he possessed kith and kin for whom he cared, it would have been a less selfish one; but destiny seemed to have designed him for his groove. It was as a possible paragraph that he first saw the lady with the green bag, in the Athenaeum. She began to come

to the Athenaeum suddenly; at hast, he could not recall ever having seen her there before, ami by this time he knew all the denizens of the place-—the famous Boston preacher who apparently wrote his sermons there: the dapper old gentleman who came every day in a motor, to read the foreign paper*: the college students looking up facts for thosi**: the famous authoress whose tales about New England were annual literary events, and who always nodded to Thoma* Blair as she passed by, sometimes chatting with him amid the stacks, where conversation was permitted: ‘the learned judge who came over from coni' to work on his* novels of Boston society: and. lastly, the little old lady who had been poring over huge notes, for thirty nine year*, taking copious note*, nobody knew what for. and was looked upon as a mild lunatic. Suddenly, to join the company, came the lady with the green bag. I lium a a Blair luuud her one afternoon

in his favourite seat at the long table, and took his place opposite with illconcealed annoyance. She was of that indefinite age when youth has passed and a middle period not arrived—possibly thirty-seven, be reflected. Hie looked neat but neglected, as if the good things of life had passed her by; but she had wavy hair and a thin, rather pretty face —at least, it was an odd, appealing face when she glanced up from her work and turned her startled, timid eyes upon him, to see why he was making such a clatter putting his clippings on the table. His irritation was somewhat lessened by that look, bhe had a pile of copy-paper before her, too, and from her green bag on the table—the kind of bag that lawyers in Boston bring the family dinner home in at night—protruded what appeared to be a note-book. After her glance had hastily left his face, she resumed her writing, now and then consulting an old volume before her. Thomas Blair began to shape a paragraph. "We have discovered,” it began, “that

to carry a green bag is not the exclusive prerogative <-i the Boston male. Woman has usurped one more privilege. Briefs and beef are no longer alone concealed within that green cloth receptacle. Do you fancy, then, that laces and lingerie have taken their place? Plainly you do not know that ultimate product of the ages, and emancipated (and emaciated) Boston female. In the bag we weir | ri vileged to observe yesterday were . .” rh. ii Thomas Blair s(opp< <1 writing. Wh.it was in the bag? He suspected something more amusing than anything he could invent. As he spc. ulated, the lady rose and went out for another book. A moment later a gust of air blew the top shi vt of her copy across the table to him. His euiiosity was too strong tn be resisted, and he hastily wanned it. ’The sheet was headed: - We are informed by an old historian that Mary Bead was of a strong and robust constitution, capable of enduring much exertion and fatigue, bhe was

vain and bold in her disposition, t: t susceptible of the tendered emotions and of the most melting affections. ii r conduct was generally directed by virtuous principles, while at the same tine she was violent in her attachments. Though she was inadvertently drawn in to a mode of life which was stained her character, yet she possessed a rectitude of prim iple and of conduct far superior to many who have not been exposed to such temptations to swerve from the path of female virtue and honour. Now, while there might seem to l»e a certain contradiction in these various attributes assign, d to Mary by the his torian. we must remember that she was a woman as well as a pirate, that she was a woman, indeed, before she was a pirate And here the page end. d. Thomas Blair hastily put the sheet back on top of the others, at the same time glancing at the title of the old volume the lady hid been consulting. It was he Birutes’ Ow n Book.’’ "Pirates!” he grinned to himself. "A green bag full oi pirates! and he com pleted his paragraph with great glee. As he walked back to the oflice wit I his copy, ho wondered idly why she was writing page after page about pirate.®. Some were about lady pirate®. evidently. Was she compiling one of those strange lectures which are read before women's clubs? Or was she a gentle lunatic, like the old lady of the Athenaeum? Or was she merely a Bostonian, indulging a true Bostonian ted for sonic outlandish branch ot ant iques • She diiln t look like a lunatic. She dul look like a Bostonian but a very pleasantly un-self-assertivc Bostonian. Ami then those timid eye£ of hers! Somehow they pleaded with a man for pn ti n. Indulging these thoughts, he . i <4lvd leisurely and stoppml to watch l’. * sparrows nesting in King's ( hapil burvingground, so that ho was ten minutes l.m r than his habitual time. ’The night cd - tor, already at work on the early ‘flimsy,” remarked facetiously on this fact. That night Thomas Blair went home where the sitting room of his two room lodging w.is piled to the ceiling with books, m< -t of them what the dealers would catalogue as curious, and delved for facts about lady pirate*. But his library was strangely deficient in this branch of learning, so he gave it up and, turning to one oi his favourite works, Casanova’s "Memoirs,” forgot the lady with the green bag. But when he entered the library the next day, there she sat. hard at work. She looked up at his entrance, flushed deeply, seemed visibly t*o shrink from him like a hurt thing, and hastily placed her green bag in a chair beside her out of sight. For a moment he was astonished. Then the realisation came to him that she had read his paragraph, had known him for the writer, and was offended, wounded. porhay s. I homas Blair sat down ami thought this over. ,It was an entirely new' experience. People had always regarded his para graphs as the jokes they were intended to be. Why he had put every member of his club into print at one time or another, and they never cared .it least, not much! Sometimes they liked it. Had the woman no sense of humour? Besides, could he be expected to throw out a perfectly good paragraph, quite harm less and free from libel, for the sake of a stranger’s silly objection to seeing her self in print and no mums used, either? ll<* was rather grumpy aho it the whole business. lie looked again at the lady. Shi' was carefully avoiding his eyes. She was rather frail. she looked timid, pathetic. And there she >at writing about pirates! Ihe thing was preposSomething in his steady giame com polled he! to lift, her c\r< She r« ddcnei’ <>iii e more and dropped th m with a curious air of »uio more hurt th.in an gr\. rhomas Blair grumbled to himself. But the woman had touched him. I'cr once he thought more about a person than a paragraph. He *et about con* <».•( ing an apology. It was not en*y. I‘. is never easy for a go< <1 newspaper man to apologise! But he contrived .it la*t to write somt thing which ►he. reading between the lines, could interpret a*: "No harm meant. We strive only to amuse, never to wound.” The Indy left the library before he did. Ho watched her depart and thought about her when she was gone. With her quiet gownaml timid ways she was the very nntitheiiia of a pirate*. Finally he laughed, a

•fleet innate chuckle. He began to see her not a* a paragraph but a short story. The next day. even as he entered the hushed portico of the library, amid 'the marble busts and the dim old paintings and the smell of leather, he wondered if she would be upstairs. She was. Once more she glanced at him, blushing and timid, but not shrinking as before. There was a kind of startled gratitude in het eyes. She seemed to acknowledge his apology, and not so much to accept it as to be grateful for the thought of her it implied.’ It startled Thomas Blair to realise that ho was reading so much complex meaning into the glance of a woman’s eyes; yet he had no doubt whatever of his intuition. It was some time before In* could get down to- work. He was inwardly excited; some dormant instinct of sex had risen to trouble him -a state of being to which he was totally unaccustomed, ami which seriously threatened the habitual placidity of his ways. It ended in his writing, apropos of nothing whatever in the news of the day, a paragraph about glances. The next day the lady did not her eyes. Ihe day following she was not at the library at all, nor the day after that. The third dav was Sunday. Thomas Blair missed her; or, at any rate, as he told himself, he was just getting into the mood of a little adventure when the curtain was rung down. In Monday morning’s paper he had a pleasan't, whimsical paragraph about the pleasures derived from <>ur daily meetings with familiar people who yet are strangers to us. and the sense of loss when these meetings cease, lie made reference to certain short stories of Coppee, ’to the apple woman on Brimstone Corner, to Charles Lamb’s London, and to a lady on Beacon Hill, of whom he spoke with that air of mystery which often made hi- column pieplant. On Monday afternoon the lady with the green bag was in the library, and rewarded him with a glance, a startled glance that yet was almost radiant in its pleasure. Thomas Blair pitched into his grist of dippings with a happy heart. He had a sense of satisfaction and geniality >o great that when night came he took out two of ‘the cub reporters, who were sitting in the dingy office “waiting for something to , turn up,” and Sought them drinks. “Boys.” b.e said, “I suppose you’re in this newspaper game to get copy for V'hat your English professor described as literary purposes.’ All young reporters <re. Let me give you a tip. Begin to t rite it now, while it still isn’t copy, but the real tragedies and real comedies of people.” “Isn't it always?” they asked. Not by a damn sight!” said Thomas Blair. “It s dried beans shoveled into the lion -» mouth.” W hereupon, with enthusiasm, he called for another round of drinks. Not long after this, he was prowling |u the stacks of the library. looking for U Xenophon, for the day’s news contained the story of a man who couldn’t stop sneezing, and Thomas Blair was busy compiling a column about sneezes. He 1 eniembered that somewhere in Xenophon. to vary the monotony of advancing so many parasangs. a soldier sneezed, whereat the whole army invoked the god>. I his sppmed to suggest an origin of pagan antiquity for our custom of saying “God bless you.” Rounding a dark coiiter, he came upon the lady, looking for the elect lie light switch. He turned on the light for her. ‘"Can I help you with your number?” he a-ke<|. he shrank, blushing, but held out a slip of paper to him. I’ l st that s round here somc- ’’ ,H ‘ S:,i L the title?” *Th the Story of Captain Kidd and his ireasure.” she stammered in | ow tone Thomas Blair laughed ah.ml. He really mu tin t help it. -Are you going to fit up an e\|K‘dition t> the West Indies <»r dig in the Lynn Woods?” he asked.’ The lady looked at him in her startled way. which he was beginning to know mo well. alnM.st as if di- were asking for mercy, but answered nothing. He found the book. giving it gently into her hands. “1 should think an old history of Lynn. Massachusetts, in the \m<ri<Hn Imai history section, would Iwlp you.” he said. “Doctor (rot hers says there must Is* treasures in the Lynn Woods, herause it’s manifestly a good place to hide it. and none has ever been found Then there’s Poe’s story. ‘The Cold Bug. for the atmosph<*re of treat* •ure-sOßrchiiijj• aud I’ra seen *»oi new liar ®

an old record of Nantucket —I think it was Nantucket—which bore on the subject."

“Thank you, said the lady, in a soft, gentle voice. .“You are very kind.” And she seemed to flutter back to her place in the reading-room like a startled bird. "What in thunder is she doing, anyhow?'’ thought Thomas Blair, for the hundreth time. The next day he investigated buried treasures for himself, coming but with a column of strange and erudite information about deluded expeditions after pirate gold. He was rewarded by another glance of gratitude. But the lady did not go again amid the stacks. She sent a library assistant. She appeared to be avoiding him. lie was rather piqued.' A few evenings later, at his club. Blair was sitting with a publisher of juvenile books. The “best seller’’ just then was a novel signed by an admitted pen-name. “If you weren’t a newspaper harpy.’’ said the publisher, “I’d tell you about an odd case in our own office.”

“I'm not a newspaper man at my dub,” said Blair, with some asperity. "1 am, I trust, a human being.” “Welt as far as you can bo, perhaps, laughed the publisher. "We are bringing out a bloodthirsty Imok for bays, called ’A History of the Pirates.’ by Madison Carey Co'wperthwaite—and Madison is the timidest. quietest, sweetest little Boston spinster you ever laid eyes on; afraid of her own voice!’’ Thomas Blair appeared properly impressed. He laughed aloud, slapped his knee, and sipped his highball ecstatically. "Madison Carey Cowperthwaite! lie chuckled. "Isn’t ’that an inspiration, though? What is her real name?” fie asked the question with bland innocence. “Can’t tell vou that—- staid secret, said the publisher. ‘ But it’s a thousand to one you wouldn’t know her.” Foiled here, Blair inquired: “But why does she do. it, or why do you employ her tu do it?” “As to that,” replied the other, “I can only say we employ her because she does it well. My suspicion is she does it because she needs the money damn bad. She came into our office one day a year ago with a litle story for boys about a pirate cruise—one of the pirates was a lady —queer idea, eh? But historical. Anyhow, we took it, and it had a decent sale, so we took up with her suggestion to put into modern form, with modern illustrations, a boy’s history of pirates. But why she chose to write about pirates instead of nice little Sunday-school children, or Rebeccas of Sunnybrook Farms, or Lord Fauntleroys, I know no. more than vou.”

"Perhaps she lias a piratical soul,” suggested Thomas Blair. “Good Lord! if you’d ever seen her!’’ laughed the publisher. "1 should like to,” said Thomas Blair Well, that explained something, but not all. He went home pondering the riddle. The next day the lady was not at the library, nor the next, nor the next. It occurred to him that she had completed her investigations of the pirates. He missed her. He tried to invent a paragraph that might tell her so, but his invention failed him. Everything he tried seemed clumsy. Finally he wrote simply this: “Where is the ladv with the green bag?" The paragraph he inserted at the tail of his column every morning for a week, to the mystification of his readers. At length he was rewarded. Entering the reading-room, he saw her sitting under the ancient pictures, backed by the alcoves dim with tiers olf books, idly turning the pages of a volume. Slits gave him one quick, fluttering, almost shamefaced glance, blushed, and presently rose and departed. Tt was evident she had no work to do. H was evident she came solely in answer to his paragraph. Thomas Blair hail a pleasant sensation under his waistcoat. ‘‘Shi l doesn’t know what to liegin on next.” he reflected presently. And he racked his brains for a subject for nearlv two hours, so that when closing time came his own copy was uncompleted, ami he had to finish it in the office, which caused the night editor to inquire .solicitously if he were sick. The following noon, turning to come up Mount Vernon Street. Thomas Blair found the way blocked by .a trench for a non- water main. Annoyed at the enforced departure from his hibitnal rut. he was about to turn back when asmnt’ Loy arose from the trench, shielded his eyes with his hand, gazed at Thomas Blair, aud whispered hoarsely back into

the trench, “Hist —Indians!” Instantly three more heads appeared, three sticks were aimed at the intruder, and three voices cried, “Bang!” Thomas Blair was, after all, human. He clapped hie hand to his mouth and emitted a war-whoop. “Heap big Injun!” he cried. “Who you?” "We are settlers," answered the small boys. The man turned gayly- down Joy Street. "That’s it," he said to himself. “‘.Settlers and Indians.’ All boys play it. Get the story from the . Indian point of view. There were the .Stockbridge Indians, poor thing! They submitted to being converted by Jonathan Edwards.” And as he hastened down the steep street he nearly ran into the lady coming out of an old brick house —a lodginghouse now—carrying her green bag. -She gave him a startled glance of recognition, and he gallantly lifted his hat, “I’ve got it!” he announced. “I’ve gotit for you!” “G-got what?” she asked in a frightened voice, the voice of a woman getting a telegram. “The subject for another book. ‘.Settlers and Indians'—all boys play th? game—call the book that—give ’em the real history of it—blood and scalps, of course, but also the Indian point of view that boys never get right. The Indians are either glorified into supermen by Cooper or reduced to bestial savages by somebody else. You can just take the New England colonies for a starter, and have pictures of Indian places as they look to-day—South County. Rhode Island, Sand Springs in the Berkshire*. Stockbridge, the I’enugewasset country—dozens of ’em.” “Vou—y ou know, then?” almost whispered the lady. It seemed against her •will that she was fluttering along by his side.

"Yes, I know.” He looked at her tenderly. She was no longer a Paragraph. She was no longer even a Short Story. She was a strange little human being at h:a side, and he was making a heroic effort to get out of his crust of selfishness and habit, and win her confidence by his sympathy. Tt was new work for Thomas Blair. “I discovered it by chance. I’ll never tell a soul. But what do you -care? They say your stuff is bully, and the boys love it. It's a far nicer way to make a living than writing atrocious ‘best sellers,’ which ruin the naturally good literary taste of all the servant-maids in the country. Of course, the mistresses have no taste to start with—most of 'em!” A blush of pleasure reddened the lady’s thin face to the ears. “You—you encourage me,” she half whispered. And suddenly two tears started from her eyes and went rolling down her cheeks. Thomas Blair had a foolish impulse to whip out his handkerchief and wipe them off. Then he had a still more foolish impulse to weep himself. Then he had a self-sacrificing inspiration. “See here.” he said; “I’m bound for breakfast here at the Bellevue. You. come with me and have your lunch. We’ll have a real party and talk the new book.” Now Thomas Blair, for fifteen years, had never been unselfish nor even cheerful before breakfast. He frequentlysaid that a man who was cheerful, especially one who whistled, before morning coffee, ought to be shot. For ten years he had eaten his breakfasts alone. For five years his day had been spoiled if he couldn’t get his accustomed table, or if his eggs were boiled four minutes instead of three. Yet here he was, inviting a guest, a lady, to whom * he would have to be agreeable, and whom lie would have to take to the diningroom upstairs, where he didn’t know the waiters. He was not, however, reflecting on this ■calamity, now that the question was put. He was anxiously wondering if the lady would come. He was making good progress for a crustaceous male of forty! Her blush deepened at his invitation. Her tears stopped, and a frightened look took their place in lief eyifs. H'lien, quite suddenly, a look of fun succeeded. She drew herself up straight, and smiled — the first time he had seen her smile--ho that her th.in face took on a new charm, a winsome charm. “I’ll play I'm Mary- Read, the Lady Pirate, anil come!” she declared. "I trust, Mary." said Thoma* Blair gravely, “that you have no dirk con* eealed in—upon your person." And they entered the hotel. It was a merry party. Thomas Blair, quite forgetting to be cross before his coffee or to feel a deep sense of personal injury because the waiter brought cream but no hot milk, was as iliarming a«s lie knew how to be, and consistently called

the lady Mary. She had lost her outer aspect of timidity; her face was flushed with excitement, as if she were playing a forbidden game, and hugely enjoying it. But every effort of his to learn more of her secret she parried nimbly, with that spiritual shrinking he had come to know so well. Yet she seemed to enjoy- that game. too. They talked little of the book. When the long meal was over, its ostensible object was unaccomplished. “We’ll have to talk it over in the stacks,” said Thomas Blair, as he turned toward the office. The lady, suddenlylapsing from her mood of excited gaiety into her old self, fluttered quickly across the street and disappeared within the solemn doors of the Athenaeum. Thomas Blair was late at the office for the first time within the memory- of the oldest office boy. “I had a guest at breakfast,” he explained to the astonished managing editor.

"The hell you did!” was that official’s expressive if inelegant comment. The book progressed. So did Thomas Blair. He no longer walked through 'Mount Vernon Street. though the water-main was laid and the street reopened. He walked through Joy Street and ambled slowly in front of the brick house where the lady lodged, looking up at the door and the windows. Occasionally he made a long detour down the hill in order to pass a florist’s first, an I left- flowers at her door in person, for she had already confided to him her name. He felt very sheepish walking through the streets by daylight, hag ging a bunch of flowers, and yet more foolish when he passed them to tha bold-eyed maid at the door. Yet it seemed to him. on this very account, that his gift would represent little attention if he should order it by telephone. Yes, he was surely progressing. Stranger still. he no longer slept till noon. it can not be truthfully sail that he always retired before his habitual three o'clock, but he rose sometimes as early as nine, and delved in Colonial history- at the Athenaeum, picking out passages for the lady. Once already he had given her his cherished Symphony- seat, calling for her at her house early and walking with her through the Public Gardens, charming in the winter evening, and sitting him self in a seat in the gallery. He brought her home in a taxicab—an exciting luxury- for both of them. She had gone dressed in her best, and looked, he thought, very beautiful, with an operacloak made out of an old Paisley shawl, which gave her a kind of Oriental colour and even attracted some attention in the lobby. He did not know that the reason she had not appeared at the library for two days before the concert was because she was busy making this opera-cloak—busy with trembling,, joyous fingers. Coming home in the cab. they talked of the convert. Thomas Blair would 'have enjoyed it more had he been able to sif. beside her, where he could watch her face and share her pleasure; and lie told her so. He could fee! rather than see her blush in the darkness. She drew away from him into a corner of the cab. But when she next spoke her voice wh very soft and happy. That night ha ■went home land Tend “Aucasein and Nicolette.” He told himself his Romance French needed brushing up. It is sometimes a dangerous thing to strip a man of the crust and scales of his habits, for he may stand revealed a pitiful, shivering creature with veins that run water instead of blood. But with Thomas Blair the stripping proved a tbnic. The -season was warming into spring. The snow was melting on the Common, and men went about with their overcoats on their arms. Rising three hours before his accustomed time, he began to walk to his club for hie breakfast with a buoyant stride. In ’ rash moment he sampled food which Im . careful diet had for many years prohibited, and had no pains. The dingy, noisy newspaper office, where for five years his “nerves” had not permit let liim to write, took on again somethin! of the fascination it had possessed for . him when be came to it. a cub reporter. Often he helped the lady- with her references all tlie afternoon, read over her manuscript, made suggestions, insert c-t some humour of his own —the wisdom of which, “for young boys, you know, she sometimes lilusbingly and apologeti cally’ questioned—and then did bis own writing in the evening at the office IL' bought a corncob pipe and resumed lib smoking, sitting with the reportin' 4 after the evening rush was over, swapping jokes and sharing eagerly in their ' enthusiasms and interests. “Toni,” said the night editor, com ng out from behind his desk, one mgh*

after the last "take” of eopy gone upstairs, “how the devil have you managed to grow young again?” “Bill,” said Thomae Blair, “I’ve changed my habits for a complete new set of irregular ones. It’s a great prescription.” The night editor looked at him sharply, but -said no more. "I’d suspect a woman, if it was anybody but old Torn Blair,” he told the city editor the next day’, when he came on for duty. But they both agreed that was impossible. As a matter of fact, Thomas Blair didn't understand it himself, lie didn’t even try. lie gave the question no thought. This frail, timid, shyly merry, bafilling little lady with the green bag kept him busy’ thinking about her, planning for the success of her bookfi devising schemes to make her way easier, to bring that winsome smile to her lips, that look of startled gratitude to her eyes. Thomas Blair no longer saw life a<s paragraphs, but as opportunities to make a fellow creature happy-. Oddly enough, the paragraphs came to him just as readily- as before! Indeed, some readers remarked on a new touch of sentiment in them that spring. But he had not yet found out why she (dected to begin her strange- literary career with the bloodthirsty lives of the pirates. Behind that mystery, he felt sure, lay the secret of her soul. This elusive mystery he pursued, and ever she eluded, guarding her secret with a kind of maiden shame and virgin tenacity; but 'she took no umbrage at the chase. Indeed, she leaned upon him now trustingly-; she looked up into his face with shy gratitude when he made hie suggestions about the book; she strove to anticipate his comments; and, under the sun of his friendship her quaint little sense of humour crept into the light and sparkled merrily. She even began to bring him paragraphs for his column, apologetically, half ashamed, with a blush; but when he printed them she was radiant with the thought that she had been of help to him. One day Thomas Blair woke up into the full consciousness of spring. Spring was in the air. As he pasifed the Common, idlers were sprawled on the benches, birds sang, and a haze of green hung like a veil in the trees. He paused “before the bronze St. Gaudens wi ought” and muttered to himself the opening lines of William Vaughan

Moody’s beautiful ode. The tulips on the State House lawn were beginning-to show their gaudy colours. Spring had even entered the Athenaeum. 'The windows stood open, and there was a fresh smell tin the plave. The lady awaited him upstairs. There was spring in her greeting, and in her new hat, blooming with lilac sprays. Friendship, encouragement, a little material success, had wrought their magic upon her. He thought of the little woman he had seen a few months before, and of the change these months had brought, and in his dumb, masculine way thanked God for whatever share he had l>een permitted in the process. But what he said was: — “We must look up old Jonathan Edwards to-day, just to give the finishing touch to those Stockbridge Indians.” The lady drew’ a note-book from her green bag, and they ascended to the dark and dirty old theological room, at the very top of the library. “Phew! It’s musty in here,” said he. “Let’s take the books to an open window.” They found a window in an unfrequented corner of the stacks, crusted with dust and cobwebs, and threw it open. Below them was the green oasis of the Old Granary Burying Ground. Beyond that were the rear windows of the sedate “Atlantic Monthly” office, the still more sedate rear windows of the Wigglesworth mansion, and the slender spire of the Park Street Church on Brimstone Corner. From Tremont Street drifted up to them the pleasant rumble of traffic, the song of the busy city. They opened the works of the old theologian, he who was so far away from the song of •cities, from any call of active life, and began to read. “This isn’t about the Indians,” said Thomas Blair presently, with a smile, “but listen to it, just the same. It’s about Sarah Pierrepont, who became Mrs Jonathan. She was thirteen and Jonathan was twenty when it was written.” And in a voice ■which caressed the solemnly tender old phrases, he began to read:—• “They say there is a young lady in New Haven who is beloved of that great Being who made and rules the •world, and that there are certain seasons in which this great Being, in some •way or other invisible, comes to her and fills her mind with exceeding sweet delight, and that she hardly cares for

anything except to meditate on Him; that she expects after a while to be received up where He is, to be raised up out- of the world and caught up into Heaven; being assured that He loves her too well to let her remain at a distance from him always. There she is to dwell with Him, and to be ravished with His love and delight forever. Therefore, if you present all the world before her, with the richest of its treasures, she disregards and cares not for it, and is unmindful of any pain or affliction. She has a strange sweetness in her mind, ami singular purity in her affections; >is most just and conscientious in all her •conduct; ami you could not persuade her to do anything wrong or sinful, if you would give her the whole world, lest she should offend this great Being. She is of a wonderful calmness, ami universal 'benevolence of mind; especially after this great God has manifested Himself to her mind. She wiill sometimes go about from place to place singing sweetly: and seems to be always full of joy and pleasure, an t no one knows for what. She loves to be alone, walking in the fields and groves, and seems to have some one invisible always conversing with her.” “It may please you to know that her spiritual gifts did not prevent this New’ Haven young lady’s attention to more mundane matters,” said Blair, when he had tiipished. “She married Jonathan, ami planted the eleven little twigs which grew into one of the most famous genealogical trees in America.” The lady with the green bag smiled. “I rather like Jonathan for that passage,” she said. “And Sarah must tsurely have had a lovely soul.” “Do you know,” said Thomas Blair. “I prefer a little of the dash of Mary Read, the female pirate.”

The lady shot at him one of her startled glances. He was regarding her •intently. He moved a little nearer. She was at the edge of the window already, and could retreat no farther. “Mary,” he said, “old Jonathan was a great logician and a good man, according to his lights. I’m a poor logician, and, until I knew you. I was a pretty bad man. Oh, yes, I was; don’t protest! I was selfish and mechanical, and of no use to anybody but •myself, and precious little to him. But I’m better now r , because you have made me so. And let me say that there is a lady in Boston who is be-

loved by the great Being that made and rides the world, and who expects after a while to ba received up wliere He is, but not before she hat* made a crusty old paragrapher happy by telling him that she cares for him.” It. may be very seriously questioned if rhomas Blair had intended to make these remarks when he entered the Athenaeum that morning. Spring and the lady's lilac hat and the now blood in him had liifted him finally oui of the last rut of li‘:h habits into the free world of good human emotions. Ho took the hand tha’t lay trembling on the window-sill an J looked eagerly into the timid eyiH that shone up at him through a mist of tears. Presently the timidity and the tears cleared away 1-ike clouds before the sun. ’rhe eyes smiled at him. and the winsome mouth. Her hand ceased trem bling in his. Her other hand stole up to hie shoulder, and so she* stood, regarding Iriiu in silence, while the scent of spring and the rumble of the city drifted in to them over the old burialground, and the musty works of Jonathan Edwards lay forgotten on the window-ledge. Presently he kissed her, reverently, almost with a. timidity like her own. She spoke for the fust time. “The pirates,” she -said, “were because my life was <so dull and grey and lonely and poor. I wanted to snatch at some excitement, some happiness, and 1 didn’t know’ how. I didn’t have the courage, either. Pirates take what they want at the point of a pistol. I loved them madly. Mary Read was my hero!” She spoke simply, with a smile. But behind her w»ords Thomas Blair saw the grey vista of her starved, pathetic life. He caught her in his arms with a sob. “N-nobody ever noticed me before you camp,” she whispered. “Stop!” said he. “We’ll wash the pirate deck with no more tears. Up with the Jolly Roger! We begin a mad romance from this moment!” “I — I began one last winter,” <aid the lady, softly. The next morning ’Hiomas Blair’f readers were astounded by a column on the psychology of the wanton lapwing and his new spring ’.-rest—a column which ended so warmly, so tenderly, that men took their paper home at night and read it to their wives.