anyhow."

"What--why--I don't want to die. I've done nothing. All I want is peace
and quiet, and a place to swim where it isn't too light nor too dark. I
mind my own affairs. Let me alone--you hear me--let me alone!"

They answered him not. Slowly and irresistibly the hollow formation
contracted--individuals slipping out when necessary--until he was
pushed, still protesting, into the nearest movable cave. The walls
crashed together and his life went out. When he was cast forth he was
in five pieces.

And so our gentle, conservative, non-combative cholera microbe, who
only wanted to be left alone to mind his own affairs, met this violent
death, a martyr to prejudice and an unsympathetic environment.

* * * * *

Extract from hospital record of the case of John Anderson:

August 18. As period of incubation for both cholera and hydrophobia
has passed and no initial symptoms of either disease have been
noticed, patient is this day discharged, cured.

FROM THE ROYAL-YARD DOWN

As night descended, cold and damp, the wind hauled, and by nine o'clock
the ship was charging along before a half-gale and a rising sea from
the port quarter. When the watch had braced the yards, the mate ordered
the spanker brailed in and the mizzen-royal clued up, as the ship
steered hard. This was done, and the men coiled up the gear.

"Let the spanker hang in the brails; tie up the royal," ordered the
mate from his position at the break of the poop.

"Aye, aye, sir," answered a voice from the group, and an active figure
sprang into the rigging. Another figure--slim and graceful, clad in
long yellow oilskin coat, and a sou'wester which could not confine a
tangled fringe of wind-blown hair--left the shelter of the
after-companionway and sped along the alley to the mate's side.

"The foot-rope, Mr. Adams," she said hurriedly. "The seizing was
chafed, you remember."

"By George, Miss Freda!" said the officer. "Forgot all about it. Glad
you spoke. Come down from aloft," he added in a roar.

The sailor answered and descended.

"Get a piece of spun yarn out o' the booby-hatch and take it up wi'
you," continued the mate. "Pass a temporary seizing on the lee royal
foot-rope. Make sure it's all right 'fore you get on it, now."

"Aye, aye, sir."

The man passed down the poop steps, secured the spun yarn, and while
rolling it into a ball to put in his pocket, stood for a moment in t