sive negative.

"'Noh! Noh! You do not play thot again!'

"The musician turned in furious astonishment. Had he taken warning
from the look in the other man's eyes he might have acted differently.
But the admiring plaudits were ringing in his ears, and he snarled out
sharply, 'That is for me to decide.'

"'Noh! You play thot never again,' shouted the CHEF, and the next
moment he had flung himself violently upon the loathed being who had
supplanted him in the world's esteem. A large metal tureen, filled to
the brim with steaming soup, had just been placed on a side table in
readiness for a late party of diners; before the waiting staff or the
guests had time to realize what was happening, Aristide had dragged his
struggling victim up to the table and plunged his head deep down into
the almost boiling contents of the tureen. At the further end of the
room the diners were still spasmodically applauding in view of an
encore.

"Whether the leader of the orchestra died from drowning by soup, or
from the shock to his professional vanity, or was scalded to death, the
doctors were never wholly able to agree. Monsieur Aristide Saucourt,
who now lives in complete retirement, always inclined to the drowning
theory."

THE QUEST

An unwonted peace hung over the Villa Elsinore, broken, however, at
frequent intervals, by clamorous lamentations suggestive of bewildered
bereavement. The Momebys had lost their infant child; hence the peace
which its absence entailed; they were looking for it in wild,
undisciplined fashion, giving tongue the whole time, which accounted
for the outcry which swept through house and garden whenever they
returned to try the home coverts anew. Clovis, who was temporarily and
unwillingly a paying guest at the villa, had been dozing in a hammock
at the far end of the garden when Mrs. Momeby had broken the news to
him.

"We've lost Baby," she screamed.

"Do you mean that it's dead, or stampeded, or that you staked it at
cards and lost it that way?" asked Clovis lazily.

"He was toddling about quite happily on the lawn," said Mrs. Momeby
tearfully, "and Arnold had just come in, and I was asking him what sort
of sauce he would like with the asparagus--"

"I hope he said hollandaise," interrupted Clovis, with a show of
quickened interest, "because if there's anything I hate--"

"And all of a sudden I missed Baby," continued Mrs. Momeby in a
shriller tone. "We've hunted high and low, in