"I was talking about Susie," he laughed. "Wondered why you called her the 'old girl.'"

Carl faced about just as a slip of a girl in a faded print dress came running down beside the track. He hastened toward her with a cry. Her face wore the look of some haunted creature.

"I can't stand it any longer, Carl," she panted, as she half stumbled, half threw herself into his arms. "I want you to take me away."

"Next week, dear," he soothed, as he patted the curly head resting upon his shoulder. "Bear it for a week until I can get my layoff and we'll slip off to Haven and get married. You can wait that long, can't you?"

"Go back there?" the girl shuddered. "She would kill me, Carl."

"It's not as bad as that, is it?" he asked. For answer she drew back the tattered sleeve from the slender white arm. Three livid welts told their own story of stepmother's abuse.

"Did she strike you?" he answered, smothering an oath.

"She found out about that ride in the cab last week, and she said she would kill me." Even the recollection of that awful scene brought the tears afresh.

Carl turned to Jim. "If this was the regular run," he said, "I could get Baxter to take her in the car and it would be all right. We could get married in Haven without a license and then I could defy Mrs. Hammond."

"Baxter must be in Haven by now," objected Jim. "Sixty-seven is the first train out in the morning. Ain't you got a friend who'd take her in?"

"Not one," groaned Carl. "We'll have to take her in the cab."

"Remember what Caddon told you last week," reminded Jim. "Told you then that the next time you let her ride in the cab he'd lay you off."

"I don't care," protested Carl. "I'll take her out of the way of that fiend if I never handle a throttle again."

Susie, who knew Carl had gotten into trouble for letting her ride on the engine with him, looked up protestingly. "I'll

stay, dear," she said quietly. "I'm not afraid. Maybe some one will take me in."

Carl thought of the terror in which Mrs. Hammond was held in the town and shook his head, but, despite his urging, Susie shook her head. She was trembling with fright, but she would not let her lover get into trouble. He had been ten years working for the passenger run. This one trip would spoil it all.

She was still protesting when the special came panting up the grade and the two heavy engines were uncoupled and run onto a siding, while 680 puffed leisurely down to take the train. She walked down the track beside the engine and stood beside the cab as it was coupled on.

Adams was waiting at the telegraph window for his orders from the dispatcher, and now he came toward the engine. "All right," he shouted, as he handed up the yellow tissue. "Clear track all the way to Haven. Not going to take her, are you?" he added as his glance fell upon the girl.

It was Susie who answered that she was not going, and Adams turned toward the rear of the train.

He had just given the signal to pull out when down the road came the swaying figure of a woman crazed with anger. One glance told Carl that it was Mrs. Hammond, and without a word he reached down to where Susie was standing and with a powerful jerk lifted her into the cab, while at the same moment he threw over the lever. There was an answering snort from the engine, which drowned the cry of the baffled woman, and the train moved out.

The locomotive was of the Mother Hubbard type, with the engineer's cab well forward over the tremendous boiler. As soon as he was under way Carl helped Susie over to the other side of the boiler and then glued his eyes to the track ahead.

There were ten miles at a slow speed as they dropped down the side of the mountain, but once the "eight" was passed it would be clear running. Meanwhile it would take all of his care to hold back the train and keep from going into the "eight" at such a speed that the engine would leave the track,

They had gone half of the distance and were running through the cutting when a loosened stone fell from the side and crashed through the window and struck Carl full upon the head. He fell over stunned, and as he did so the lever was thrown over and 680 bounded ahead under a full head of steam.

With a scream of terror Susie climbed over the boiler again and stooped over her almost unconscious lover, endeavoring to stanch the flow of blood that made a line across his face. With trembling hands he forced her away.

"The 'eight!' Running away! Stop!" he gasped.

The

In a flash she grasped his meaning. engine under a full head of steam was bounding down the side of the mountain straight toward the dreaded figure eight. It was impossible for the fireman to climb over to the cab at the speed they were going. She must act quickly if she would save them.

In her rides in the cab shed she had learned the use of the various levers and cocks, and once or twice Carl had let her hold the throttle along a straight stretch. Now she grasped the throttle and pulled it over. She knew that to attempt to check the speed too suddenly would be as bad as to let it continue. With white face and set teeth she worked at the throttle until the speed gradually slowed, and just as the "eight" came into sight she realized that at last she had the powerful engine under command.

She brought the machine to a stop and Adams came running forward. "Serves you right," he shouted, as he sped along he track. Got gabbing with your sweetheart and let the engine get away from you. Fine sort of engineer to be trusted with the special. You'll be on the carpet for this in-" He came to a stop as he climbed into the cab, and at a glance comprehended the tableau he saw there. He knew something of Carl's story and Jim told him the rest, while Susie, all unconscious of the sensation she had made, bent over the form of her lover.

When at last she had brought him back to consciousness and stepped to the door

of the cab to go in search of water, she found the entire party standing beneath her.

It was Gordon, the president, who broke the silence.

"Young woman," he said, severely, "it is against the rules of this road for visitors to ride on the engine. I shall have to ask you to come back into my private car. The fireman says he can run the engine and Adams will fire for him, so as soon as we move Wilbur back there we will go on. I might add that we have discharged Wilbur for violation of orders, but on account of his wife to be are going to make him division superintendent. Of course, he broke the rules, but I, for one, am rather glad of it."

With an impulsive gesture Susie sprang forward and planted a kiss directly beneath the grizzled mustache. "So am I," she said, quietly.-By CLARA TAYLOR, in St. Louis Globe-Democrat.

THE HAUNTED OFFICE, OR THE AUDIT IN-SPECTRE.

I'

N these prosaic times ghosts are a drug in the market, spiritual manifestations being generally the result of prolonged spirituous absorption, and consequently worthless from a psychical point of view. The days, or rather nights, when spooks glided about the premises, rattling chains and other sordid ironmongery, in order to enhance the terror of their haunt, are past and done with, thank heaven or the reverse, if it pleases you. For they were very unoriginal, those ghosts of the years gone by, ever gliding, and invariably wailing to a hideous accompaniment of rattling fetters. One never hears, for instance, of a murdered sea captain, whose ghost was in the habit of appearing every Christmas Eve in the bar of the tavern he was wont to frequent the most when alive, announcing his arrival by clashing a pair of anchors together and lustily bellowing "Ahoy." However, science has successfully shunted all ghosts right bang over the stop block of superstition, and the spiritual twaddle beloved of our ancestors is now greeted with sceptical grins. Therefore, had it occurred to anyone else the whole affair would have

been treated with incredulous laughter. But little Bertie Sipkins, the Beau Brummel of the establishment-well, dash it all, the little beggar must have seen something, as he couldn't possibly have imagined it, his brain not being capable of so much mental effort in one instalment without being irretrievably damaged.

Bertie was the acknowledged leader of fashion in the department. From the top of his exquisitely correct straw hat to the tips of his painfully pointed shoes, which scintillated in the sun as though he had a Cullinan on each toe, Bertie was all the Knutts and the majority of the Jongs amalgamated and compressed into one exotic unit. If there was one fault in dress Bertie was guilty of it was a penchant for high collars, which gave him somewhat the appearance of gazing at the world out of a glazed drain pipe. But even the greatest of us have our little eccentricities, and Bertie was no exception to the rule. Besides, his socks, which lead one to believe that he had been paddling in a rainbow, were the acme of elegance, and those twin sacrifices to fashion belov atoned in a great measure for the gravity of the fault above. It is to be regretted that he was small in stature, very small; in fact, there were those in the office, callous brutes, men whose collars were frayed and cuffs sunburnt, who said that he had to stand on twopence to look over a sheet of notepaper. But such are the penalties suffered by the sartorial devotee. Not that Bertie suffered, by any manner of means. A spot of ink on his shirt cuff might throw him into paroxysms of despair, or a hint that the creases in his trousers were out of plumb reduce him to a state of nervous prostration, but the talk of the herd"Pooh, my de-ah boy, don't be so beastly vulgar." To hear him elongate his words like elastic, and project them lazily through his nose was a lesson in effortless vocalization. Looking at Bertie one instinctively felt a mad desire to catch hold of him, tie him up with dainty silk ribbons and send him as a Christmas present to somebody.

That a ghost should have taken the trouble to visit Mr. Sipkins seemed the height of absurdity, a mere waste of super

natural talent. Still, Bertie was convinced that he had seen what he so graphically described. He certainly was not under alcoholic influence at the time, being by nature abstemious. True, he might, out of pure bravado, indulge in a glass of welllemonaded claret, say, on his mother's birthday or other domestic festival, but beyond this slight concession to Bacchus he could have laid the foundation stone of a temperance hotel without a qualm of conscience.

It was Christmas Eve in the workhouse, if one may style an office a workhouse, people being usually supposed to work there, opinions to the contrary notwithstanding. All day long Bertie had fought a losing battle with work, so much so that at the witching hour of 5 p. m., when offices yawn and clerks put hats on heads, he found himself astonishingly behindhand with the day's clerical output, from his chief's point of view, that is, not his. Just as he was jauntily tossing his curls with a dainty pocket comb-a love gage acquired from a smitten flapper-preparatory to forsaking the scene of official operations to the tune of "The Work I Left Behind Me," the head of the department bore down upon him.

"Have you finished that return yet, Mr. Sipkins?"

"Yes-er-that is, it's practically as good as finished."

"What do you mean by 'it's as good as finished? Is it done or isn't it?" and the chief's eyes glittered coldly.

"No, sir, it's not quite done," replied Sipkins, shuffling a pair of prettily shod feet about in his agitation.

"Then why on earth couldn't you have said SO at first," continued the chief. "Now, Mr. Sipkins, that return must be completed before you leave here tonight. You thoroughly understand. I will be down for it myself in the morning, so you can put it on my desk when you go. This, as you are no doubt aware, is Christmas Eve, when peace and good will should reign supreme. So don't grow too peaceful over the job, and put as much good will into it as you can. Good-night;" and Sipkins was alone with his thoughts, a half completed

return, and a violent craving for a word of sufficient virulence to sum up the situation. "Damn" was absurdly inadequate; still, it was better than nothing, so he kept on saying it, until the monotony induced by repetition restored him to a more normal temperament.

Retrieving the comb from the other side of the office where he had hurled it in his passion with the first "Damn," Bertie disinterred the return from the drawer into which he had so light-heartedly cast it a few minutes before, and planking the sheets on the table in front of him proceeded to get on with it, with the air of a forlorn hope, and a sigh that would have drawn tears from a ballast truck.

It was hard, cruelly hard. There, outside, was the gay world where the Flappers flapped and giggled at the Jongs, who manfully munched peanuts whilst arranging for an evening's revelry at the bioscope. To say nothing of Susie, dear little thing, waiting and waiting at the customary corner with ever-increasing anxiety, and no Bertie to stir her girlish mirth with lightsome jest or feast her with her favorite chocolates every ten seconds. Still, what must be, must be. The fiat had gone forth, and fate, in the person of his chief, had proved unkind.

Bertie laboriously crawled from the bottom to the top of a long column of figures, put down the total, and then crawled from the top to the bottom, only to find that his first total was wrong and his second right, or his second wrong and his first right. This placed him for a moment in a quandary, until struck by the bright idea that as first impressions are generally correct, probably first casts followed the same rule, so he refrained from adding up the columns twice, which lightened his labors wonderfully.

Gradually the evening shadows lengthened, and daylight slowly departed till, becoming too dark for accurate working, Bertie switched on all the lights. The office in which Mr. Sipkins toiled was situated on the third floor of a large block of buildings belonging to the Railway Administration. As an office it was an eyesore. Two sides of it were occupied by an army of

pigeon holes, which stretched from floor to ceiling. Old books, papers, weird contorted brown-paper packages, restrained from vomiting their contents on to the floor by bonds of tape that had once been pink, filled every hole, and the dust was thick over all. At one end of the room stood a large safe, which in better days may have contained bullion, but which now only hid some paltry petty cash, a few stamps and possibly the chief's monthly supply of tobacco. The electric lights showed up the dinginess, the dirt and Bertie, the latter for once almost intent on the task before him.

Night had now descended, not a sound was to be heard, save that emitted by Mr. Sipkins as he audibly accompanied himself up another column. Nine o'clock came, and went; ten o'clock approached, was, and was not, while Bertie plodded on, growing more and more absorbed as the end of his trouble hove in sight. By eleven o'clock he was practically over the last hurdle, and heading hard for the winning post.

It was, as near as he can recollect, about five minutes to twelve, when, the return completed, he laid down the pen, and throwing himself back in his chair with a loud grunt of relief, allowed his eyes to stray round the office. Was it fancy or the result of poring over figures that made the lights so dim? He rubbed his eyes vigorously to clear up his doubts on the point. Why, hang it all, that only seemed to make matters worse. The place, too, appeared to have grown cold, a chilly, uncanny, clammy cold, cold that smacked of the charnel house, or a defective refrigerator truck. Bertie turned on the radiator, but that apparatus, taking its cue from the lesser lights, so to speak, refused to respond with the warmth usually expected from it. And then through the stillness. the hour of twelve boomed forth. Each boom, so Bertie states, seemed to last five minutes, and by the time the clock had finished he could have sworn it had struck one hundred and forty-four. This shows the nervous condition Mr. Sipkins must have been in. No clock has ever been known to strike such an amount at one

"My magtie," explained Bertie, becoming bilingual with horror.

"Cease, vile clerical worm," said the phantom, descending from the safe, and sitting on the top of it.

According to Mr. Sipkins the spectre was about eight feet high, and of much the same texture and transparency as a jelly fish. It was the eyes, however, that filled him with terror. Sinister and baleful, with all the suspicion of all the world concentrated in their glance. When fixed upon him, Bertie said he felt spasms of fear shoot from the crown of his head, down his spine, and out through his rubber heels. "Why do you trouble me, oh, miserable departmental scribe?" said the ghost in a voice that filled the office, and made the lamp shades vibrate.

"I-I-didn't mean to trouble you, sir," stammered Sippy.

"Mean, mean," hissed the figure. "What do you mean by you 'didn't mean?'"

"I meant, sir" replied Bertie.

"Oh, unutterable thickhead, fathead and abnormal blockhead. It is not your paltry meaning I would have. Why am I troubled by this wretched scrap of breathing clay. The years have onward rolled, and every eve of Christmas have I received my annual pass of freedom and been permitted to journey from below, nay, from above"and here the frightful apparition glared fiendishly at Bertie-"to haunt the place made memorable by my mortal work. Know, scrawling pigmy, that I was once an Audit Inspector," and the eyes of suspicion fiercely flashed. "On yonder shelves my life's work reposes; reports of discrepancies, lost stamps, missing cash and crooked accounts. I would be alone with

them, and con them o'er, gathering from my earthly days some relief from my spiritual unrest. Yet tonight am I thwarted, and doomed to enter on another period of anguish, derived of my yearly respite through the intrusion of this mewling clerking. Oh, woe, woe, woe!"

At first it seemed to Bertie that the spectre sought to stop a runaway horse. It appeared, however, that the phantom was merely voicing its disappointment.

Suddenly the figure fired this hair-raising question at the cowering junior, “Have you struck a balance?"

For a moment Bertie was paralyzed, and his tongue clove to the roof of his mouth. Unhitching it with difficulty, he managed to stutter, "N-n-n-no, sir; I am not a striker."

At this the ghost cast its hands abroad, exclaiming, "Oh, Poutsma, Poutsma, and for this have ye labored. Is it for this that -" but the telephone bell rang and cut it short. Like a supernatural aeroplane the phantom glided to the 'phone.

"What! I am urgently needed! Why? The hour of one has not yet chimed, neither hath the rooster its dread summons skirled. Audit whose books? The Coaling Officer's? What! the monthly account rendered is totally out of proportion to the amount consumed! The devil!"

To this day Mr. Sipkins is undecided whether the last two words were an exclamation of rage or a confirmation of where the message came from.

Violently casting the receiver down, the spectre turned and towered above the trembling Sipkins, glaring at him like a basilisk. "I am bidden to return hence, oh worm," it said. At the word "return," Bertie shivered in his shoes.

"No," thundered the ghost as though reading his victim's very thoughts, "it is not for me to audit your worthless figures. It is wretched ink splashers such as you who make a stamp book ludicrous and a journal laughable. You never check a cast except by inadvertence, whose balance sheets look as if they had been fired out of a shot gun, whose ruled lines are mere washaways. You are a mistake, a discrepancy, a blot on the ledger of life, and