e two-steps and waltzes of the casino
band.

A negro man wearing a white jacket came through the iron gate, with
its immense granite posts and wrought-iron lamp-holders.

"What is going on here to-night?" asked the hermit.

"Well, sah," said the servitor, "dey is having de reg'lar
Thursday-evenin' dance in de casino. And in de grill-room dere's a
beefsteak dinner, sah."

The hermit glanced up at the inn on the hillside whence burst suddenly
a triumphant strain of splendid harmony.

"And up there," said he, "they are playing Mendelssohn--what is going
on up there?"

"Up in de inn," said the dusky one, "dey is a weddin' goin' on. Mr.
Binkley, a mighty rich man, am marryin' Miss Trenholme, sah--de young
lady who am quite de belle of de place, sah."

HE ALSO SERVES

If I could have a thousand years--just one little thousand years--more
of life, I might, in that time, draw near enough to true Romance to
touch the hem of her robe.

Up from ships men come, and from waste places and forest and road and
garret and cellar to maunder to me in strangely distributed words
of the things they have seen and considered. The recording of their
tales is no more than a matter of ears and fingers. There are only
two fates I dread--deafness and writer's cramp. The hand is yet
steady; let the ear bear the blame if these printed words be not in
the order they were delivered to me by Hunky Magee, true camp-follower
of fortune.

Biography shall claim you but an instant--I first knew Hunky when he
was head-waiter at Chubb's little beefsteak restaurant and cafe on
Third Avenue. There was only one waiter besides.

Then, successively, I caromed against him in the little streets of
the Big City after his trip to Alaska, his voyage as cook with a
treasure-seeking expedition to the Caribbean, and his failure as a
pearl-fisher in the Arkansas River. Between these dashes into the land
of adventure he usually came back to Chubb's for a while. Chubb's was
a port for him when gales blew too high; but when you dined there and
Hunky went for your steak you never knew whether he would come to
anchor in the kitchen or in the Malayan Archipelago. You wouldn't
care for his description--he was soft of voice and hard of face,
and rarely had to use more than one eye to quell any approach to a
disturbance among Chubb's customers.

One night I found Hunky standing at a corner of Twenty-third Street
and Third Avenue after an absence of severa