CLERGYMAN [looking at himself in a glass].

not to wear this wig. It looks like living a lie.

Really, I ought

HIS WIFE. Bless your heart, John, don't let that trouble you. That wig will never fool anybody for a moment.

TH

GOING HOME OF THE TWIN BROTHERS.

SALLY PRATT MCLEAN GReene.

a

HERE was a purple, dark sky, though it was but little after mid-day, glowing with red at the edges like a sunset; the wind was blowing strong.

Vesty Rafe pointed out to sea. to make home-it is on the reefs!"

"Notely's boat-it was trying

I saw it then by a flash of that unearthly light. I hastened with Vesty to the low beach, where the people were moving strangely, looking out on the sea with its swift-crusted breakers.

From the yacht, beating helplessly on the ledges, Notely and the few who had sailed with him that morning were putting out the life-boat; but Captain Rafe kept running his weather-stained hand down his white face, his head shaking.

"Bare chance t' save half of 'em in the gale—they'll swamp her; nay, nay, they'll never get her home with that freight; an' it's no sea-it's a herricane. I seen the sky in broad day like that but once before, an' then——”

His voice was hushed, the boat was off, was lost; then once again we saw her; we felt the gale rushing; when we could see again, there were a few men struggling in the waves, a few climbing back upon the sinking masts of the vessel, with wild signals.

The little basin-boats were old and frail; only Gurdon Rafe had lately been building a new fishing-boat. While we were looking off, he had been hauling it down the steep bank by the cottage. Vesty ran to him and put their child in his arms and clung to him.

"Gurd," said his father sternly, the old stained hand still stroking his white face, "ye have strength an' skill above the mostbut look, look, at yon! Put up your boat, lad; it's no use. Moreover, there are five men yonder on the masts—your boat, tested in an ordinar' sea, holds but five alone!"

"Will ye go out jest to give them another chance to wrack themselves, an' ye put yerself by to drown?" said another, with trem

bling, half-ferocious laugh. "Look to yer wife an' child. Don't be a fool!"

"There's not one o' ye," cried Gurdon, "but if ye had a boat fit, 'u'd do all ye could, an' men sinkin' an' a-wavin' ye like thatlet me off! There's no other way

وو

His voice broke. He looked at his wife and child-a look the woman understood for all eternity-and launched the boat.

Vesty stood like marble; her shawl, escaped from her own throat, was warm about the child that Gurdon had placed back on her breast.

As we watched, Fluke, Gurdon's brother, came breathless from the woods.

Captain Rafe ran to him, with the hand still stroking his pallid face: "That was Gurdon out there, making so near the sinking boat-he would go-only five——”

But Fluke heard never a word. He saw; his face flushed with mad joy; he tossed his hair back, and, leaping into the waves, swam to his own frail little fishing-boat that was tossing at anchor. His voice leaped back to us above the tumult of the wind: "Gurd an' me'll come home together!"

There was a lull in the gale; the five men had put off from the sinking craft in Gurdon's boat. The men were standing with ropes on the shore; but I only saw, as the tempest moaned to swell again, one figure on a bending mast, between sky and mast, and one in a frail shell toiling toward him.

The tempest fell and smote. Then did nothing seem to me fated underneath those awful heavens, but grand and free; freest, mightiest of all that figure imprisoned between storm and cloud, overwhelmed, buried-triumphant, imperishable! Then did the dead that I had known come forth and walk upon the waves before me; and I beheld that they were not dead, but glorious and strong.

Then all seemed black about me. I would have clutched at something but I felt Vesty's hand grasp mine in appealing agony.

She spoke softly: "When Gurdon had anything that anybody

needed and they asked him for it, he always gave it them. So they asked him for his life-and he gave that!"

They brought in with ropes, through the breakers, the five men who had neared the shore in the young sailor's new fishing-boat. But the "Twin Brothers"-the sublime figure on the mast, the toiling figure in the boat-had "gone home together!"

HOW MY WIFE REDUCED HER WEIGHT.

BURLESQUE MONOLOGUE FOR MAN.

NAT M. WILLS.

(The "Happy Tramp.")

[Copyright, 1910, by American-Journal-Examiner.]

CHARACTER: TRAMP, in tramp costume.

H

ORTENSE got it into her head that she wanted to reduce.

She weighed 350 pounds net, and it annoyed her—and me. She was so fat that when we took a sleeper to Chicago, one night, I had to sleep in the hammock. It was a warm night, and she had her arm out of the window. In the morning she found three mail-bags and a red lantern on it. When we were married, the minister asked me for the ring; and, for a minute, I couldn't find it until I happened to remember I had it on my arm.

But she is always good-natured. Fat people are always goodnatured. I guess that's why Hortense is so fat. It's her nature. She can't disguise it. The minute you see her you know it's her nature to be fat. But it's inconvenient to be so afflicted with embongpong (as they say in France). You have to be careful. how you dress.

For instance, Hortense wanted to wear a sheath-gown. She