ew words he was allowed to utter.

"'Gentlemen!' he cried at the top of his voice--'Gentlemen, I'm one of
you! I'm a writing man like yourselves, and I wrote this play that
you've seen. That man never wrote it at all--I wrote it myself! That man
has only altered it. I read it to him two years ago--two years ago,
gentlemen! He kept it for a week, and then got me to burn it as
rubbish--when he had made a copy of it! And he gave me this,
gentlemen--he gave me this that I give him back!'

"It was a matter of only a few seconds, but not till my own last hour
shall I forget Morrison's painted face on the stage, or that sweating
white one beneath the boxes; or the fluttering from Pharazyn's poor
fingers of the five-pound note he had treasured for two years; or the
hush all over the house until the first hand was laid upon his dirty
collar.

"'What!' he screamed, 'do none of you believe me? Will none of you stand
by me--isn't there a man--not one man among you----'

"And they threw him out with my name on his lips. And I followed, and
floored a brute who was handling him roughly. And nothing happened to
me--because of what happened to Pharazyn!"

* * * * *

The dear old boy sat silent, his grey head on his hand. Presently he
went on, more to himself than to me: "What could I do? What proof had I?
He had burnt them every one. And as long as the public would stand him,
Morrison kept his good name at least. And that play was his great
success!"

[Illustration: "HE GAVE ME THIS."]

I ventured gently to inquire what had happened to Pharazyn.

"He died in my arms," my old friend cried, throwing up his head with an
oath and a tear. "He died in a few minutes, outside the theatre. I could
hear them clapping after he was dead--clapping his piece."

[Illustration]

Zig Zags at the Zoo: Conkavian

If the gentle reader, full of a general desire for knowledge and a
particular enthusiasm for natural history, will refer to any one of the
great standard works on birds, and, turning to the index, seek for the
family title of the Conkaves, I have every hope and confidence that he
will not find it; because, as a matter of fact, it is a little invention
of my own, and, I may modestly urge, rather a neat thing in scientific
nomenclature, on the whole. It has the advantage of including in one
family the storks and the pelicans, which in all orthodox books on birds
are planted far apart and out of