he eyes of Miss Angelina were bright behind her not-unbecoming
spectacles as she watched the face of the solemn young man in the
Morris chair near the reading lamp.

In his hand the solemn young man held three sheets of school
composition paper. As he read the pencil writing on page one he lost
his gravity. Over page two he smiled broadly. At the end of the last
page he said:

"D.K.T. couldn't have done better. May I show it to him?"

In the office of the Ashland (N.J.) _Bee_ the solemn young man was
known as Mr. Sloan. At Miss Lance's he was Sam. The mentioned D.K.T.
conducted the celebrated "Bee-Stings" column on the editorial page of
Mr. Sloan's journal, his levity being offset by the sobriety of Mr.
Sloan, who was assistant city-editor.

On two evenings a week Mr. Sloan fled the cares of the Fourth Estate
and became Sam in the soul-refreshing presence of Miss Angelina. He
was by no means her only male admirer. In the Sixth Grade at the
Hilldale Public School she had thirty others; among these Willie
Downey, whose name appeared on every page of the composition Mr. Sloan
had read.

With a host of other sixth-graders throughout the city Willie had
striven that day for a prize of ten dollars in gold offered by the
public-spirited A. Lincoln Wilbram, of Wilbram, Prescott & Co., for
the best schoolboy essay on Moral Principles.

"Moral principles, gentlemen; that is what we need in Ashland. How
many men do you know who stand up for their convictions--or have any
to stand up for?"

If the head of a department store is a bit thunderous at times, think
what a Jovian position he occupies. In his cloud-girt,
mahogany-panelled throne-room on the eighth floor he rules over a
thousand mortals, down to the little Jacob Downeys in the basement,
who, if they do not quite weep with delight when he gives them a
smile, tremble, at least, at his frown. When a large body of popular
opinion accords him greatness, were he not undemocratic to affect
humility and speak small?

"I speak of common men," said Mr. Wilbram (this was at a Chamber of
Commerce banquet); "of men whose living depends upon the pleasure of
their superiors. How few there are with fearless eye!"

He scarcely heard the laughter from a group of building contractors at
a side table, who had not seen a servile eye among their workmen in
many moons; for a worthy project had popped into his mind at that
instant. How was the moral backbone of our yeomanry to be stiff