drown!_ BOTTLE-O'-RUM!'

"With that I left the Pedagogue
A-sitting in the wet.
He was so absent-minded, I
Dare say he's sitting yet--

"Upon the little school-house steps,
Revolving in his mind
The definite relation 'twixt
The cosmos and mankind."

When the Itinerant Tinker had finished his story he rose wearily to his
feet.

"If we don't hurry along," he said, "I doubt whether we shall reach the
Crypt in time to take our tea. I never--"

He was interrupted at this point by a shrill voice, coming, it seemed,
from the direction of the forest.

"Jingle-junk! jingle-junk! jingle-junk!" shouted the penetrating voice.

The Itinerant Tinker stopped instantly. An angry frown gathered on his
brow.

"I know who _that_ is," he muttered. "It's Wamba, son of Witless, the
Jester of Ivanhoe. I've been trying to catch _him_ for seventy-two
years, and if I do, I'll--"

Dickey never heard the end of the sentence for the Itinerant Tinker made
for the wood at a surprisingly swift gait. The incident had its really
amusing side, too; for he left behind him a trail of pots, pans,
boilers, stove-lids, potato-mashers--in fact, Dickey thought, he must
have dropped almost all of his "necessary commodities" by the time he
had vanished into the wood.

THE STRIKE OF ONE

BY ELLIOTT FLOWER

Danny Burke was discharged.

A certain distinguished ex-President of the United States probably would
have said that he was discharged for "pernicious activity"; but the head
of the branch messenger-office merely said that he was "an infernal
nuisance."

Danny was a good union man. As a matter of fact, he was a boy, and a
small boy at that; but he would have scorned any description that did
not put him down as "a good union man." Danny's environment had been one
of uncompromising unionism, and that was what ailed him. He wanted to
advance the union idea. To this end, he undertook to organize the other
messengers in the branch office, advancing all the arguments that he had
heard his mother and his father use in their discussions. The boys
thought favorably of the scheme, but most of them were inclined to let
some one else do the experimenting. It might result disastrously. Just
to encourage them, Danny became insolent, as he had already become
inattentive; he told the manager what he would do and what he would not
do, and positively declined to deliver a message that would carry his
work a few