ch
little things as I do. Well, a good-night to you."

Morley walked to the corner where he would cross to his hotel. He
blew slow streams of smoke from his cigar heavenward. A policeman
passing saluted to his benign nod. What a fine moon it was.

The clock struck nine as a girl just entering womanhood stopped on
the corner waiting for the approaching car. She was hurrying as if
homeward from employment or delay. Her eyes were clear and pure, she
was dressed in simple white, she looked eagerly for the car and
neither to the right nor the left.

Morley knew her. Eight years before he had sat on the same bench with
her at school. There had been no sentiment between them--nothing but
the friendship of innocent days.

But he turned down the side street to a quiet spot and laid his
suddenly burning face against the cool iron of a lamp-post, and said
dully:

"God! I wish I could die."

THE BUYER FROM CACTUS CITY

It is well that hay fever and colds do not obtain in the healthful
vicinity of Cactus City, Texas, for the dry goods emporium of
Navarro & Platt, situated there, is not to be sneezed at.

Twenty thousand people in Cactus City scatter their silver coin with
liberal hands for the things that their hearts desire. The bulk of
this semiprecious metal goes to Navarro & Platt. Their huge brick
building covers enough ground to graze a dozen head of sheep. You
can buy of them a rattlesnake-skin necktie, an automobile or an
eighty-five dollar, latest style, ladies' tan coat in twenty
different shades. Navarro & Platt first introduced pennies west of
the Colorado River. They had been ranchmen with business heads, who
saw that the world did not necessarily have to cease its revolutions
after free grass went out.

Every Spring, Navarro, senior partner, fifty-five, half Spanish,
cosmopolitan, able, polished, had "gone on" to New York to buy
goods. This year he shied at taking up the long trail. He was
undoubtedly growing older; and he looked at his watch several times
a day before the hour came for his siesta.

"John," he said, to his junior partner, "you shall go on this year
to buy the goods."

Platt looked tired.

"I'm told," said he, "that New York is a plumb dead town; but I'll
go. I can take a whirl in San Antone for a few days on my way and
have some fun."

Two weeks later a man in a Texas full dress suit--black frock coat,
broad-brimmed soft white hat, and lay-down collar 3-4 inch high,
with bla