d
get things shaped up to "colonize" them properly.

He now has at least a dozen different "herds" of them. Some are removing
the stone from fields for farmers by eating it into sand and letting it go
back into the soil when the ground is plowed. Pewter gets two dollars an
acre for this.

One herd is working on the road in Harrison township cutting the rock out
of the hills. Several herds are at work in the sandpaper factory between
Elgin and Hewins.

Mr. Pewter says his sandpaper mill has paid well, but thinks he will close
it down during the spring months because so many road overseers want the
bugs for spring road-work.

He says he is about to close a contract with the Santa Fe for the
mastication of the big boulders along its tracks west of Elgin. This, he
says, will give the bugs work all season.--_Kansas City Journal._

A HAIR-RAISING TALE.

"The 'beauty doctor' told a good story about her hair-restorer," said a
well-known Akron business man Monday, "but I know a better one. With
several other men I was associated, several years ago, in the manufacture
of a restorer. We had a fakir selling the remedy, and this was one of his
tales:

"'A woman came to me the other day for her eighth bottle. She said she
liked the taste of it so well. I was frightened and took her into a
private office and told her to show me her tongue. She stuck it out and
there was a half-inch of hair on it. To keep from hurting the business we
had to feed her camphor balls all that summer to keep the moth out of her
stomach.'"--_Akron (Ohio) Times-Democrat._

The Stolen Letter.

BY WILKIE COLLINS.

William Wilkie Collins (1824-1889) was the son of an English
portrait painter. As a young man he engaged in commerce, but
later studied law and was admitted to the bar. His own
tastes, however, inclined him to literature; and even while
in business life he wrote a historical romance, "Antonina."

Becoming acquainted with Dickens, he was encouraged by the
latter to give up his profession and devote himself entirely
to novel writing. Dickens at that time was editor of the
magazine called _Household Words_; and in its pages there
were published the short stories by Collins, afterward
collected into a volume entitled "After Dark," from which
the accompanying selection is taken.

In another magazine, also edited by Dickens--_All the Year
Round_--Collins scored his first great