t."

"No one who has lived in Yom," said Crosby fervently, "and remembers its
green hills covered with apricot and almond trees, and the cold water
that rushes down like a caress from the upland snows and dashes under the
little wooden bridges, no one who remembers these things and treasures
the memory of them would ever give up a single one of its unwritten laws
and customs. To me they are as binding as though I still lived in that
hallowed home of my youth."

"Then if I was to ask you for a small loan--" began the greybeard
fawningly, edging nearer on the seat and hurriedly wondering how large he
might safely make his request, "if I was to ask you for, say--"

"At any other time, certainly," said Crosby; "in the months of November
and December, however, it is absolutely forbidden for anyone of our race
to give or receive loans or gifts; in fact, one does not willingly speak
of them. It is considered unlucky. We will therefore close this
discussion."

"But it is still October!" exclaimed the adventurer with an eager, angry
whine, as Crosby rose from his seat; "wants eight days to the end of the
month!"

"The Afghan November began yesterday," said Crosby severely, and in
another moment he was striding across the Park, leaving his recent
companion scowling and muttering furiously on the seat.

"I don't believe a word of his story," he chattered to himself; "pack of
nasty lies from beginning to end. Wish I'd told him so to his face.
Calling himself an Afghan!"

The snorts and snarls that escaped from him for the next quarter of an
hour went far to support the truth of the old saying that two of a trade
never agree.

THE SCHARTZ-METTERKLUME METHOD

Lady Carlotta stepped out on to the platform of the small wayside station
and took a turn or two up and down its uninteresting length, to kill time
till the train should be pleased to proceed on its way. Then, in the
roadway beyond, she saw a horse struggling with a more than ample load,
and a carter of the sort that seems to bear a sullen hatred against the
animal that helps him to earn a living. Lady Carlotta promptly betook
her to the roadway, and put rather a different complexion on the
struggle. Certain of her acquaintances were wont to give her plentiful
admonition as to the undesirability of interfering on behalf of a
distressed animal, such interference being "none of her business." Only
once had she put the doctrine of non-interference into pr