ver get lost there?"

"That's jist what I did, sonny, though I can't think how; but, anyway,
there I was, all to once, right away from the rest, and all alone in the
dark. I tried to holler, but my throat was so dry with the dust and what
not that I made no more noise nor a frog with a sore throat. 'Twarn't
pleasant neither, I can tell ye, to feel my feet kickin' agin skulls and
bones in the dark, and to think how _my_ bones 'ud be added to the
collection 'fore long, when the rats had picked 'em clean. At last I
concluded that I'd jist make matters worse by steerin' at hap-hazard,
and that my best way was to anchor, and wait for the rest o' the convoy.

"Jist then I spied _two eyes_ a-shinin' in the darkness, and 'fore I
could say 'Knife,' slap came somethin' right in my face, givin' me sich
a start that I jumped five ways at once. But by the soft, furry feel, I
guessed what 'twas; so I sang out, 'Puss! puss!' and the thing came
rubbin' agin my feet, and what should it be but a stray cat! Thinks I,
'Here's somethin' to keep off the rats, anyhow!' and I sat down in a
corner, and took the cat in my lap, and, if you'll b'lieve me, off I
went sound asleep! Fust thing I knew after that, all my mates was around
me agin, laughin' like anythin' to find me nussin' a cat that way. But I
wouldn't go that job over agin, not to be made a Cap'n!"

[TO BE CONTINUED.]

SOMETHING ABOUT FANS.

Kan Si was the first lady who carried a fan. She lived in ages which are
past, and for the most part forgotten, and she was the daughter of a
Chinese Mandarin. Who ever saw a Mandarin, even on a tea-chest, without
his fan? In China and Japan to this day every one has a fan; and there
are fans of all sorts for everybody. The Japanese waves his fan at you
when he meets you, by way of greeting, and the beggar who solicits for
alms has the exceedingly small coin "made on purpose" for charity
presented to him on the tip of the fan.

In ancient times, amongst the Greeks and Romans, fans seem to have been
enormous; they were generally made of feathers, and carried by slaves
over the heads of their masters and mistresses, to protect them from the
sun, or waved about before them to stir the air.

Catherine de Medicis carried the first folding fan ever seen in France;
and in the time of Louis the Fourteenth the fan was a gorgeous thing,
often covered with jewels, and worth a small fortune. In England they
were the fashion in the time of Henry