are all that matter;
Come and talk the man-talk; that's the cure for you!

Leave the lady, Willy, you are rather young;
When the tales are over, when the songs are sung,
When the men have made you, try the girl again;
Come along with me, Willy, you'll be better then!

Come and have a man-talk,
Forget your girl-divan talk;
You've got to get acquainted with another point of view!
Girls will only fool you;
We're the ones to school you;
Come and talk the man-talk; that's the cure for you!

THE ITINERANT TINKER

BY CHARLES RAYMOND MACAULEY

Away off in front, and coming toward them along the same path, appeared
a singularly misshapen figure. As they came nearer, Dickey saw that it
was an old man carrying on his back, at each side and in front of him,
some part or piece of almost every imaginable thing. Umbrellas, chair
bottoms, panes of glass, knives, forks, pans, dusters, tubs, spoons and
stove-lids, graters and grind-stones, saws and samovars,--"Almost
everything one could possibly think of," said Dickey to himself.

The moment that the Fantasm caught sight of the strange figure he
stopped, and Dickey noticed that his face, which was tucked securely
under his left arm, turned quite pale.

"Gracious me!" he exclaimed in a thoroughly frightened way. "There's the
Itinerant Tinker again! Now," he added hastily and dolefully, "I shall
have to leave you and run for it."

"Why, you're surely not afraid of _him_!" Dickey exclaimed
incredulously. Dickey was really surprised, for the old man, so far as
he could judge from that distance, wore an extremely mild and kindly
look. "Why do you have to run?" he asked.

"Why? _Why?_" the Fantasm fairly shouted. "I told you a moment ago that
he was the _Itinerant Tinker_! He tries to mend every broken and
unbroken thing in Fantasma Land! Every time he catches me," went on the
Fantasm, as he edged cautiously away, "he tries to glue on my head. It's
very annoying--and, besides, it hurts! Good-by, Dickey!" he called, and
disappeared forthwith into the bushes.

"Isn't he a droll person?" thought Dickey. "He never stops with me more
than ten minutes at a time but what he either loses his head or runs
away."

By that time the Itinerant Tinker had come up to where Dickey stood. He
sat wearily down on a boulder by the wayside, removed some of the
heavier merchandise from off his back, and proceeded t