oint of asking them how the
boys and girls have been since you left. If they had known that they
were the actors on a stage, and you were the audience, conditions might
have been improved--artificially; they might have acted better, with
more "class," but the interest would have been injured; you would have
been robbed of a genuine entertainment. Those people went north, south,
east and west; they went to the four corners of the earth. The sound of
their voices and laughs go up into the tree-tops, up into the hills and
down into the lake, and they are echoed back to us; and that is the only
record that is ever taken, of this interesting drama; and then the
voices fade away east--fade away west.

But you hear the elaborate puffing and snorting of a locomotive as
though laboring under its great load of humanity; there is a loud
whistle from somewhere, and then another; two engines are speaking to
each other; then the bell rings, the engine sweeps by, and the whole
earth trembles--it is the delayed eastern train. There is a great
scramble for entrance. Chance acquaintances are forgotten in the
individual excitement. The steps to one car are blocked by one man who
has enough baggage for ten, and one worried-looking young lady with a
baby is afraid she will lose her train. The train pulls out with a
"swish, swish" of escaping steam under great pressure from the engine,
and the station is robbed of half its population. The familiar faces
have disappeared, but a new throng has been cast into your midst--new
faces, new smiles, new voices, new scowls; and the chatter is renewed
with vigor when we have found ourselves, and are located in several
little isolated bunches. But the Okanagan local is here waiting for our
scalps. There is another scramble of men, women, children, bag and
baggage, for seats, and we are off. The little station platform is
deserted and silent but for the clatter of the wheels of the baggage
truck. The tree tops sigh, the lake murmurs, but they cannot hold us, we
must hurry to the great beyond--the whole world depends upon our
individual movements.

Of the Ubiquitous Cat

Once upon a time I had a very curious experience which had a very
curious ending.

I walked into a strange person's house, uninvited, for some mysterious
reason perfectly unknown to myself.

Sitting promiscuously around an old-fashioned fire-place, in which
blazed a cheery fire, were a man and woman and four small children;