ross
her pleasanter thoughts; "Just as you feel," she said, "when you _know_
you've got to go to the dentist." But they had a big dinner-party that
evening, and Anne, full of the joy of life, was not going to let anything
stand in the way of her enjoyment of it.

Her man began on the stairs.

"Well," he said, "what about the coal strike? When are you going to start
your coal-parties? 'Fire, 10--2.' They say that that's going to be the
new rage." He smiled reassuringly at her. He was giving the impression
that he _could_ have been very, very serious over this terrible business,
but that for her sake he was wearing the mask. In the presence of women a
man must make light of danger.

Anne understood then what was troubling her; and as, half-way through
dinner, the man on her other side turned to talk to her, she shot an
urgent question at him. At any cost she must know the worst.

"_How_ long will the strike last?" she said earnestly. "That's just what
I was going to ask you," he said. "I fear it may be months."

Anne sighed deeply.

* * * * *

I took the last sandwich and put down the plate.

"And that," said Anne, "was three weeks ago."

"It has been the same ever since?" I asked, beginning on a new plate.

"Every day. I'm tired of it. I shrink from every new man I meet. I wait
nervously for the word 'coal,' feeling that I shall scream when it
comes. Oh, I want a vote or something. I don't know what I want, but I
_hate_ men! Why should they think that everything they say to us
is funny or clever or important? Why should they talk to us as if we were
children? Why should they take it for granted that it's our duty to
_listen_ always?"

I rose with dignity. Dash it all, who had been doing the listening for
the last half-hour?

"You are run down," I said. "What you want is a tonic."

Quite between ourselves, though, I really think--

But no. We men must stick together.

THE LEGEND OF HI-YOU

I

In the days of Good King Carraway (dead now, poor fellow, but he had a
pleasant time while he lasted) there lived a certain swineherd commonly
called Hi-You. It was the duty of Hi-You to bring up one hundred and
forty-one pigs for his master, and this he did with as much enthusiasm as
the work permitted. But there were times when his profession failed him.
In the blue days of summer Princes and Princesses, Lords and Ladies,
Chamberlains and Enchanters would ride past him and