apacity within the awesome precincts of a court.

That Mr. White's picture of Nicholas is true to life is evidenced by the
present plight of Russia, as well as by the fact that the American
diplomat's views are corroborated, not only by the three Russian witnesses
who may be considered as testifying against him, but by Messrs. Flint,
Nixon and Stead, who speak in his favor. Mr. Stead declares that during
his recent interview with the Czar "his spirits were as high, his courage
as calm, and his outlook as cheerful as ever." Only a weakling sovereign,
careless and unfit to rule, could remain serene, indifferent, and
passive--whether his demeanor be characterized as kingly dignity or the
self-complacency of mental and moral impotence--under the conditions that
exist in Russia to-day.

ANECDOTES OF AUTHORS.

A.T. Quiller-Couch told a good Cornish story the other day in presenting
certificates to the members of an ambulance class in his own town of Troy.

"Years ago," he said, "an old Cornish fisherman at a similar class was
asked how he would treat the apparently drowned.

"'Well,' he replied, 'the first thing we always did was to empty the man's
pockets.'"--_Westminster Gazette._

When Archibald Clavering Gunter began the series of novels which was to
make him famous, he tried in vain to find a publisher. As none of them
would have anything to do with his books, he was obliged to bring them out
himself.

Shortly after the appearance of "Mr. Barnes of New York," he met the head
of one of the big publishing houses, who inquired how his last book was
selling.

"Fine," responded the cheerful commercialist; "I've sold two tons of it
already."

Thackeray chanced to be dining at his club when a pompous officer of the
Guards stopped beside the table and said:

"Haw, Thackeray, old boy, I hear Lawrence has been painting yer portrait!"

"So he has," was the reply.

"Full length?"

"No; full-length portraits are for soldiers, that we may see their spurs.
But the other end of the man is the principal thing with authors," said
Thackeray.--_London Tit-Bits._

Mr. Gladstone was once guilty of deliberately evading an international
regulation at the Franco-Italian frontier. He was carrying for his
refreshment a basket of fine grapes, which stringent regulations at the
time forbade being taken from one country to the other, on account of
phylloxera, an insect that attacks the roots and leaves of the grapev