ot often have, and his fingers itched upon
it.

In three minutes Eliph' Hewlitt knew the entire story of Mrs. Smith and
Susan, so far as it was known to the minister, and he leaned over and
tapped with his forefinger the book on the minister's knee.

"Open it," he said.

The minister removed the wrapper.

"Page 6, Index," said Eliph' Hewlitt, turning the pages. He ran his
finger down the page, and up and down page 7, stopped at a line on page
8, and hastily turned over the pages of the book. At page 974 he laid
the book open, and the minister adjusted his spectacles and read where
the book agent pointed. Then he pushed his spectacles up on his
forehead and looked carefully at the picnickers. He singled out Mrs.
Tarbro-Smith, and waved her toward him with his hand. She came and stood
before him.

The minister wiped his spectacles on his handkerchief, readjusted them
on his nose, and bent over the book.

"What is your brother's name?" he asked kindly, but with solemnity.

"Marriott Nolan Tarbro," she answered.

He traced the lines carefully with his finger.

"Born?" he asked.

"June 4, 1864, at Tarrytown-on-the-Hudson."

"And he is married?"

"Married Amanda Rogers Long, at Newport, Rhode Island, June 14, 1895."

"Where is he living now?" he asked.

"Last year he was living in New York--I am a widow, as you know--but
last fall he went to Algiers."

"The book says Algiers. What-er-clubs is he a member of?"

"Oh, yes," said Mrs. Smith; "The Authors and The Century."

"I have no doubt," said the minister, "from what the book says, and what
you say, that you are indeed the sister of this--ah--celebrated"--he
looked at the book--"celebrated novelist, who is a man of such standing
that he received--ah--several more lines in this work than the average,
more, in fact, than Talmage, more than Beecher, and more than the
present governor of the State of Iowa. I think I may safely advise Mrs.
Bell to let Susan go with you."

"One!" said Eliph' Hewlitt quickly. "That's just ONE question that came
up flaring, and was mashed flat by Jarby's Encyclopedia of Knowledge
and Compendium of Literature, Science and Art, a book in which are
ten thousand and one subjects, fully treated by the best minds of the
nineteenth and twentieth centuries. One subject for every day in the
year for twenty-seven years, and some left over. Religion, politics,
literature, every subject under the sun, gathered in one grand colossal
encycl