r woman so far as I can see. Why are
you pulling my roses to pieces like that? Do you know that that rose
tree was planted a hundred years ago by Thomas a Becket after the battle
of Agincourt? My dear, I am so happy that I could talk nonsense all day.
And I say, Ethel----"

The girl broke off one of the creamy roses and handed it shyly to
Chesney.

"_Vae victis_," she said with a flushing smile. "It is yours. You have
conquered."

"Yes, but I want all the fruits of victory. I ask for a hand and you
give me--a rose. Am I not going to have the hand as well as the rose,
dear?"

He had the hand and the rose and the slender waist; he drew her toward
him in his strong, masterful way, and his lips lay on hers in a
lingering pressure. It was a long time before the girl looked up; then
her eyes were full of shy happiness.

III

THE DITTY-BOX

A Pawnbroker's Story

By OWEN OLIVER

IN THE course of our dealings over the curiosities that my brother sent
home from Burma, Mr. Levy and I became very good friends. When we had
finished one of our deals we generally had a chat in the quaint little
room behind his queer little shop in the old-world alley frequented by
sailormen. On one of these occasions he mentioned that the cigar which
he had given me was the brand which he always smoked; and the quality of
the cigar suggested opulence.

"If you can afford cigars like this," I remarked, "you must make some
pretty good bargains with your curiosities!"

"Good and bad," he said. "That's the way in business--in life, if you
come to that!" He was a bit of a philosopher.

"You make more good bargains than bad ones, I'll be bound," I asserted.

"Yes," he agreed; "but it isn't so much that. The bad aren't very bad,
as a rule; and some of the good are very good. That's where I get my
profit."

"What was the best bargain you ever made?" I asked.

He filled his glass and pushed the decanter toward me.

"The best bargain I ever made," he said, "was over a ditty-box."

I helped myself to a little whiskey.

"A ditty-box? I thought they were ordinary sailors' chests that they
keep their clothes in?"

"Not exactly chests," he corrected. "They're smallish boxes that they
keep their needles and thread in, and their money, and anything else
that they set store by--their letters or their sweethearts' photos, or
their wives'--or other people's! There's no profit in them, and I don't
deal in them in a general way. I got my