Sort of like taking your coat off in the house so as not to catch cold when you go out. That captain was a reader. He sent a man for the papers a couple of times, but somehow or other I never got a chance to see them. There was always something for me to do, and I was thinking of asking him to put me on some other watch, when one of the crew went ashore and came back pretty soon with something in a can. The captain winked at me and said it was time

boy came out on the dock. He said 'Hello,' and so did I. We talked a little, and he asked me who I was and how much I got a week-because he made five dollars selling papers. I told him I was the cabin boy, and I supposed I'd get a share of the cargo when we got back.

"Where do you think you're going?' he said.

"I told him we were going to the South Seas, if we had good luck. You ought to

have seen that boy laugh. I was getting mad, and I guess I would have punched him if he hadn't said:

"You're on Bill Ryan's sand lighter, and you're going back to New York just as soon as they get loaded up. He comes down here twice a week.'

"Perhaps I didn't feel foolish. It took me just about a minute to see what was up. The captain thought that he would get a reward for me, and that was why he was reading so many papers. But he got left. I made up my mind that the best thing for me to do was to take a quick, rapid sneak. I told the boy that I was going to desert, and I asked him if he would help me. He said he would and I began to feel better right away, for something was doing; and all the boys in the Henty books braced up when they got in a tight hole. I unfolded my plan to the boy after thinking it out, and he said that he thought that it was a good one. I told him to sneak round behind the sand pile, and when I gave the signal he was to untie-I mean cast off-the rope that held the Sadie B. behind. Then I scooted along the deck and got a hatchet out of the tool box. That was exciting, for I had to pass the cabin and I could see the crew inside blowing the foam off their main brace. Then I went back, and it was just like being in a real adventure, and it was very exciting. I gave a low whistle, and when I saw the boat

drifting out behind, I jumped up on the dock and I gave the rope that held the Sadie B. in front a whack with the hatchet, and cut it through, and then I left. The boy came with me, and I don't know what became of the Sadie B. I looked back once and she was drifting down on an oyster boat and the crew were running round on the deck. They looked to me as if they were saying something.

"It would have been more exciting if they had pursued us, but they didn't. I guess they were too busy, and we ran along until we came to a car that was standing on a switch, and it had New York on a board in front. I told the boy that I was going home. That boy was all right, for he helped me when I needed it; so I gave him my rabbit's foot, and made him swear deed and double, cross your heart, hope to die, that he wouldn't tell anyone if they pursued me. Then I got on the car and started home. When the conductor came and asked me for my fare I had to ask him if he wouldn't lend me a nickel, and I told him father would pay him. He asked who my father was and I told him. He looked very much pleased and said it was all right. He said it was just like finding money, and I didn't understand him then. When we got to the car barn he called up a cop and I had to stay there till a man came. He was the detective father had sent out for me. He

wasn't a bad fellow, though, for he told me stories on the way home, and I had a good time, for it was funny to read over the shoulders of men that had papers that I was lost, for I wasn't- Cheese it! cheese it!"

William suddenly scrambled into the recesses of the van.

"Come in here," he whispered excitedly. "There is mother with Mrs. Lexington, and she'd have a fit if she saw you.

We were rumbling past Grace Church. The pavements were crowded with shoppers and the curious that collect when the awnings are out for a wedding. Behind us a carriage was circling into the curb. I looked once; I had not met Mrs. Madison, and I was very glad.

"Billy" I was terribly in earnest, and I spoke with emphasis "I'll tell your father how you got rubbered if you don't get off with me at once."

"Suppose I tell mother about our ride." William was a diplomat.

"What kind of soda-water do you like?" I asked.

"Chocolate," answered William, prompt

ly honoring my flag of truce; and we got off at Eleventh Street.

"Why don't you tell your father about your trip?" I asked, as the fizz was being shot into our drinks.

"Maybe I ought to, and I will some day; but you know I feel foolish, for he had to pay that conductor the reward for giving information where I was, which I would have given for nothing in about an hour. And he would laugh and I would never hear the end of it from Uncle Billy. You know how it is." "I think I understand," I agreed; "I won't tell."

An hour later he ushered me into his mother's drawing-room, mumbled an incoherent presentation, and retired.

"Haven't I met you before?" asked Mrs. Madison, with a puzzled expression as she held out her hand.

"I wonder where it could have been," I answered weakly.

A faint sputter came from the door. I turned in time to see William's face wreathed in the curtains. He wore a grin, and a forefinger was laid across his lips. I compounded the crime and took William.

TH

in Politics.

HERE was once a man who objected to the quarter-hour chime of bells added by a generous citizen to the equipment of a neighboring church clock, on the ground that he "hated to be brought face to face with eternity every fifteen minutes." On very similar grounds not a few Americans object to a presidential election every four years. They hate to be brought face to face" at such short recurrent notice with the duty of definite decision on issues in merit more or less mixed. They accept the dictum of Bagehot that the function of statesmanship under modern conditions "is the recording of the views of a confused nation." Occasionally, as all recognize, a genuine paramount issue may press for settlement on the As to Finality predetermined date of a presidential election, thus by a happy chance securing a popular mandate at the psychological moment. But oftener, with no cleancut issues dividing party from party, conservatism naturally prefers the maintenance of existing policies, with their perfected business adjustments, quite regardless of defects. deprecates the necessity for reconsideration merely because another period of four years is completed, or the agitation for even a desirable reform on lines of indefinite promise. If conservatism had its way, it would probably seek to substitute some more elastic system by which elections would more closely coincide with an imperative call for popular decision of a dominating issue. Thus, the issue determining the election rather than the election the issue, it might be hoped to secure the tranquillity of a greater comparative finality in politics.

It

Curiously, however, for such a contention, issues have been known to persist or to settle themselves in ways quite unlooked for, and regardless of the usual and expected work

ings of any given system. To choose for illustration an incident essentially of our own time, yet one removed by almost forty years from all but academic dispute, the extension in 1867 of the suffrage in England to nearly a million new voters was a marvel of unanticipated finality in politics.. "In every respect extraordinary," is Morley's characterization of it in his Life of Gladstone. "The great reform," says Morley, "was carried by a Parliament elected to support Lord Palmerston, and Lord Palmerston detested reform. It was carried by a government in a decided minority. It was carried by a minister [Disraeli], and by a leader of the opposition [Gladstone], neither of whom was at the time in the full confidence of his party. Finally it was carried by a House of Commons that the year before had, in effect, rejected a measure for the admission of only 400,000 new voters "—the measure introduced by the ministry of Lord Russell, whose leader in the House of Commons was Gladstone. Thus in a fashion almost unEnglish, without submission to the electorate, and in response to a popular demand only as expressed in occasional demonstration by mass meeting and procession—a demonstration in which, it is interesting to note in passing, bodies of trade-unionists were as such first conspicuous politically—was wrought out the completion of the work of the great Reform Bill of 1832. In the preceding debate, better remembered, perhaps, than its occasion—a debate noteworthy for adding to the vocabulary of politics John Bright's famous "Cave of Adullam," and Robert Lowe's biting comment on the finale, "Now we must at least educate our new masters"-one broad generalization by Gladstone stands forth preeminent. "You cannot," he exclaimed, as he faced the conceded defeat of his own original measure, "you cannot fight