d from where he still
lay on the floor.

"What fer?" she exclaimed. "Ain't the spell lifted? I'm goin' to set the
table in the kitchen, an' ef you wants any of that possum an' sweet
pertater an' that apple-dumplin' an' hard sass, you got to walk in there
to git em."

For ten minutes Gordon Lee Surrender Jones lay flat on his back on the
floor, trying to trace the course of human events during the last
half-hour. Against the dim suspicion that Amanda had in some way
outwitted him rose the staggering evidence of that very live cricket
that still hopped about the room, chirping contentedly.

Twice Amanda spoke to him, but he refused to answer. His silence did not
seem to affect her good spirits, for she continued her work, singing
softly to herself.

Despite himself, he became aware of the refrain, and before he knew it
he was going over the familiar words with her:

"Oh, chicken-pie an 'pepper, oh!
Chicken-pie is good, I know;
So is wattehmillion, too;
So is rabbit in a stew;
So is dumplin's, b'iled with squab;
So is cawn, b'iled on de cob;
So is chine an' turkey breast;
So is aigs des f'om de nest."

Gordon Lee rose unsteadily. Holding to a chair, he reached the table,
then the door, through which he shambled, and sheepishly took his old
place at the foot of the table. Amanda outdid herself in serving him,
emptying the larder in honor of the occasion; but neither of them spoke
until the apple-dumpling was reached. Then Gordon Lee turned toward her
and said confidentially:

"I wished we knowed some corpse we could sell dat coffin to."

A MATTER OF FRIENDSHIP

When a jovial young person in irreproachable pongee, and a wholly
reproachable brown topi, scrambled up the lifting gang-plank of the big
Pacific liner, setting sail from Yokohama, he was welcomed with acclaim.
The Captain stopped swearing long enough to megaphone a greeting from
the bridge, the First Officer slapped him on the back, while the half
dozen sailors, tugging at the ropes, grinned as one man.

Three months before this good ship _East India_ had carried Frederick
Reynolds out to the Orient and deposited him on the alien soil, an
untried youth of unimpeachable morals with a fatal facility for making
friends.

The temporary transplanting had had a strange and exotic effect. The
East has a way of developing crops of wild oats that have been neglected
in the West, and by the end of his sojourn Mr. Frederick Reynolds ha