numerous occasions, and I promised her I would help her daughter. I have done so. I have paid her expenses through college and I mean to provide for her future. But on one condition. I want you to marry her. Perhaps you will fail to appreciate that this is the highest proof of confidence I have yet given you. No doubt you will consider me a hateful tyrant. Consider me what you like-my mind is made up. You know me. You know what my whims mean to me. You know I am adamant when I once make up my mind. The day you write me or cable me that you and Emily have agreed to wed, that day I will set aside a trust fund for you and my cousin's daugter of $200,000. If you fail to win her you will get nothing. I am going to allow you all the time I can safely name-and it seems to me quite sufficient. I figure it out that this letter should reach you by the 10th. I must have results by the first day of the coming month. It seems to me that this is ample time. You have youth, good health, good looks, a good education and very fair expectations. Hasten your wooing, my boy. want to know that the dear girl is in safe hands. If you will go to my lawyers-Brigham, Clayton & Minch, you will be told her address. Don't disappoint me. This may be no doubt will be-my last request." The young man dropped the letter on the desk and stared at it blankly.

"What

"This is terrible," he murmured. am I to do?" He looked around as if seeking aid from the office walls. "And I owe so much to this dear, old unreasonable man. His last request. Yet how can I bring myself to do it?" He picked up the letter again. "He has given me ten days for my wooing. Ten days. Hang it all, if it was only the money I'd know what to do mighty soon. But I owe everything to him-a home, education, the very clothes I wear! And he says it's his last request. He might have called it his only one. His cousin's daughter -I scarcely knew he had a cousin. I never heard him mention her but once. What can she be like? But what difference does it make? Hang it all! I felt so happy, so well pleased with the world!" He struck the desk with his fist and scowled again. "If I refuse, it means the loss of my position here, of my hopes of advancement, it means the loss of my benefactor's regard. And there is some one else." He flushed redly. "Now I know there is some one else." He sat very still for a few moments. Then he suddenly arose, and putting the letter in his pocket turned towards the vestibule and took down his hat. "I'll go and see the lawyers," he said. "Perhaps I will find that the girl is already engaged to some one else, or married. I'd rather she was married. Much rather." And he turned toward the door. A light rap stopped him.

smiled now as she caught sight of the young

man.

"Ah, Mr. Somers," she cried, "are you in?"

The young man had started at sight of his caller.

"I'm very glad to say I am in," he replied.

"But you were just going out." He replaced his hat.

"It was in connection with a matter of little consequence,' he said. Then he remembered. "At least, it is a matter that can wait. Pray be seated."

"Thank you.' You have a pleasant office." "I find it so. Of course, I have considerable time to admire it."

The girl laughed.

"Admire it while you can," she said. "Mr. Garver says you are doing very well for a beginner."

"I am glad Mr. Garver thinks so. It seems pretty slow climbing for me."

"Then you will appreciate every successive height that you attain."

How charming she looked, how sweet and good. He buttoned his coat nervously and the rustle of the letter in his inner pocket struck a chill to his heart.

"This is he first time you have honored me with a call."

"I promised you I would look in at your new quarters. you remember."

"Of course I remember, but I was afraid you wouldn't come."

She hesitated and looked at him with a curious expression.

"I was in the building and saw your card on the door. It seemed unkind to pass it by."

"It would have been very unkind. And that, of course, you couldn't be." She flushed slightly.

He

"I had called at Mr. Garver's office. has been very kind. He promises to find me a situation where I can do copying and perhaps act as foreign correspondent."

The young man flushed.

"Is that necessary?" he asked.

"Yes," she answered, "I think it is. I can't live on charity, you know. I have an excellent education and feel that I should utilize it. It will make me happier to know that I am independent." She laughed at his serious face. "You don't happen to want an amanuensis, do you?"

He shook his head. "Not yet."

"She has excellent references and is willing to come on trial."

He shook his head again. "I don't like it," he said.

"Don't like what, Mr. Somers?"

"Don't like your bantering on this subject. Don't like the idea of your doing office work," he added boldly.

Her clear eyes steadily regarded him. "You are unusually serious this morning, Mr. Somers. Has anything happened? Have you received bad news?"

"Yes," he answered.

"I want to ask your advice. I-how long have I known you, Miss Selwyn?"

"It must be all of four months."

"Yes. Four months. But I seem to have known you much longer than that, much longer."

"It's only four months. I met you the first time soon after I left college."

"Yes. And do you think, Miss Selwyn, that a four months' friendship warrants me in asking your advice in a matter that very closely and-and seriously concerns my future?"

"We are very good friends, Mr. Somers. If you think my advice will be of any serv ice to you, it will be freely given. But am I the one to consult?"

"The very one, Miss Selwyn."

She drew down her fair brows a little at this. Then a gentle smile rippled across her face.

"I am listening," she said.

The young man squared his chin and drew a long breath.

"It is a question of gratitude," he began. "Not of duty, please understand. If it were duty I could settle the question very quickly. But this is more difficult."

The girl nodded.

"I understand, Mr. Somers."

"Yes." He paused a moment. "My father and mother both died when I was very young, and left me quite alone and quite friendless. Then an acquaintance of my father's took me in his keeping, and fed me and clothed me and educated me. No father could have done more for me. All I have I owe to my benefactor, and he has asked nothing in return-until now. I have seen him only at rare intervals; his health is not good and he spends much time abroad, but I hear from him quite often-as often as he is in the mood to write. Yesterday a letter came that greatly disquiets me. He tells me that he believed his days are numbered-but this he has told me several times before. It

is not the premonition that worries me so much for I believe he is in a nervous state that often fills him with gloomy forebodings -it is a test of my gratitude that he asks, and asks in a way that makes it very hard for me to know just what to do."

The girl's clear gaze did not leave his face. "Does it require too much of a personal sacrifice?" she asked.

He flushed.

"It's hard to explain," he answered. "He asks me to do something that hurts my pride, that wounds my feelings, that-that makes me appear contemptible to myself."

"But, surely," said the girl, "you do not hesitate?"

"Think of the gratitude I owe him." "But your benefactor does not own you." "It seems that he thinks he does. And he is old and ill and believes he is dying."

"Still you should not hesitate." She paused. "No doubt he offers you some reward if you comply with his wishes?" "Yes. A large reward. Wait. cerns some one else equally with myself." There was a brief silence.

It con

"You must decide this question for yourself Mr. Somers," said the girl. "I can't put myself in your place."

He struck the table with his hand.

"I have decided," he cried. "Let the consequences be what they may, I will refuse his proposition."

The girl smiled, and there was strong approval in her expression.

"I think you have done right," she said. "Oh, I'm sure of it now," he cried. His mood had changed, his face had brightened. Even Chicago did not seem so very far away.

"I have a benefactor, too," said the girl. "He has put me under the deepest obligations. I hope he will never test my gratitude as yours has done."

"Then you can sympathize with me," he said. "I was afraid you didn't."

"Perhaps I forgot for the moment how nearly my own personal dependence resembled yours."

The young man stood up, and steadied himself with his hand on the chair.

"Miss Selwyn, he said, and his voice was low and trembled a little, "I don't want you to think me overbold, nor think that I have taken advantage of your presence here. But you are going away, and I feel that I must tell you something that I have had on my mind ever since I first met you. Can't you guess what it is? I am poor, my prospects are not alluring, yet I feel that I will conquer fate, and-what I want to ask is thiswill you wait for me, Alma, until I can come to you and ask you to share my home and my life?"

Her clear eyes clouded. She turned her face a little away. Then she suddenly put out her hand.

"Yes," she said, "I will wait."

A moment later she laughed merrily. "What is it, Alma?"

"Something that strikes me as being very funny. I had a letter day before yesterday

from my benefactor. He told me to call this morning at the office of young Henry Somers in the Mohican Building. 'He has something to tell you,' he wrote. Can you wonder that I am amused. Is is there anything else you have to tell?"

"Nothing," he answered. "Why, that seems very strange. Told you to come to my office? May I ask the name of your benefactor?"

"Why, yes. He was my mother's cousin. His name is Robert Humphrey."

The young man gasped.

"Robert Humphrey! And you are his cousin's daughter? But her name is Emily. "My name is Alma Emily. Emily was my mother's name. But what is the matter?" For the young man had dropped back in his chair and was holding his sides.

"Oh, this is too good," he cried. "Robert Humphrey is my benefactor, too. And that test of my gratitude was marriage with you, dearest girl!"

"What!" cried the dearest girl. "And he sent me here! Why-why, he must have known all the time."

"Of course he did. It's his little joke. And a beautiful joke, too."

Then the girl laughed till the tears stood in her eyes.

"But you gave me up." "You advised me to."

Then they laughed together.

"I think," said the young man, presently, "that I will write out that cablegram." He bent over his desk for a moment. "There," he said, "how will that do?"

She took the slip and read it aloud: ""Ten days enough. We both send love.'' -By W. R. Rose, in Cleveland Plain Dealer.

"HOW

CARRIERS MAY INCREASE
THEIR REVENUE."

By A. A. Graham, Topeka, Kas.

I have taken this subject by quotation from page 406 of the decision recently made by the Interstate Commerce Commission in the now truly celebrated Five Per Cent Case.

Heretofore I have written on the same general subject under the title "Official Extravagance," as compared with the penurious savings railroad officials have enjoined upon the employes, and the whole has a direct bearing upon the question of wages.

The following is quoted from pages 410 and 411 of the decision referred to:

"Compilations prepared by the Commission show that the revenue from private cars handled free during the year 1913, on 88 of the roads which have made answer to our question would, at the tariff rates, have amounted to $644,250.79.

"But the direct cost and revenue loss attendant upon the present practice are less serious than is its demoralizing effect. It is natural that subordinates should be wasteful when their superiors are extravagant; and that efforts to secure economies should often prove futile when, at the ex

pense of the stockholders or the public, the luxury of a private car is freely granted for personal and private use to officers and directors or even to sub-ordinate officials and members of their families. The record of one of the railroads most prominent in the appeal for a freight rate advance discloses such liberal grants of free transportation of private cars, not only to directors and officers of other independent railroads, but to lesser officials of such carriers and to members of their families. Among the beneficiaries were the wives of first, second and third vice-presidents, the wife of a superintendent, the wife of a superintendent of telegraphs, the mother of a chairman, the secretary of the vice-president of a telegraph company, and the chief clerk to a president. Indeed, not a private car merely, but two special trains were furnished free to the widow of a former director, the tariff rate for which service would have been $3,466. The wife and daughter of the president of that company enjoyed in a single year free transportation in private cars for nine trips, on which the tariff rates would have aggregated $3,577."

Much more to the same effect may be found in this decision.

"FREE" CONTRACT IS A MYTH. Washington.-In discussing reasons New York state legislators advanced for amend ing the canneries law so women and children may work twelve hours a day, the Evening Times of this city says:

"It is hard to believe that in the second decade of the twentieth century a law maker would have the hardihood to rise in debate and make the point that this is not 'compulsory'-that the women and children will not be forced to work twelve hours a day' unless they so desire. In these situations the right of contract has been for a generation the subjects of satirists, not statesmen.

"As a matter of fact, every man who voted for that bill knows that the right to contract is a cynical joke when invoked in this sort of controversy. Every one knows that a law stronger than any man-made law will drive these woman and children to the factories to work to the last minute the law permits. Every one knows that if the 'right of contract' had been an equal right even the eight-hour law would not have been necessary for the protection of our workmen against themselves and against economic pressure.

"It is the story of Danglars in the robbers' cave. The bandits did not want to starve him. They gave him the right of contract. They merely required that he contract to pay $100,000 for a steak and $10,000 for a loaf of bread. But there was no compulsion. He didn't have to buy if he did not want to eat.

"It is so in the canneries. These women and children need not work the twelve hours if they object. Neither are they compelled to eat. But they must quit both if they quit the one."

WHAT POKER IS.

Being asked by a young negro what the game of poker was, Uncle 'Rastus heaved a long sigh, according to the Pittsburgh Dispatch, and replied:

"Poker, sah, poker am played with keerds. Yo' deal out five. If yo' don't like what yo' get, yo' frow 'em away and git some mo'. Den yo' diskibber dat yo' has three aces in yo'r hand, an' yo'r heart jumps right into yo'r mouth. Yo' has got $10 in yo'r pocket, an' yo' keerlessly obsarve dat you' will bet it on yo'r hand. De odder party sees yo' an' goes $10 better. Yo' put up yo'r watch, yo'r dimun pin, yo'r dawg, yo'r mewl an' yo'r wheelbarrer. He sees yo' till dar am nuffin' mo' to put up, an' den yo' call his hand an' start to rake in de pot. Dat's whar de sagacity of de cumulashum cums in. Three aces orter rake in de pot, but he happens to have fo' kings, an' yo' don't rake. Yo' am dun cleaned out-knocked down-sent to de po' house, an' if yo' lib fur a hundred years yo' will nebber git over it. Poker, sah; poker? Not any fur me. If I had my life to lib over again I might tackle cyclones, redhot stoves, aithquakes an' mad dawgs, but yo' kin gest gamble dat de pomposity ob de combinashun would elucidate dis individual to perambolate de game ob poker!"-Scenic Lines Employes' Magazine.

AH, YES, THE HONOR.

In 1862 an intimate friend of President Lincoln visited him in Washington, finding him rather depressed in spirits as the result of the reverses then repeatedly suffered by the federal troops.

"No," Lincoln replied, his eye twinkling for a moment. "I feel sometimes like the Irishman who, after being ridden on a rail, said: 'If it wasn't for the honor av th' thing, I'd rather walk.'"

WHAT IT SOUNDED LIKE.

Fine music and fine poultry were two things of which little Ella's father was very fond. Recently he bought a talking machine and among other records was one of a very brilliant aria by a great coloratura soprano. The baby listened closely to the runs of the bewildering music until the singer struck some high arpeggios and trills at the close, when she exclaimed: "Daddy, listen! She's laid an egg!"

TAKING NO CHANCES.

At a negro wedding, when the clergyman read the words "love, honor and obey," the bridegroom interrupted and said: "Read that again sah! Read it once mo', so's de lady kin ketch de full solemnity ob de meanin'. I'se been married befo'."--Argonaut.

WELL PREPARED.

The colored minister came to Jethro's house one afternoon to a christening party -he was to christen Jethro's little son, Jeth, Jr.

"Jethro," said the minister, solemnly, taking his host aside before the ceremony, "Jethro, are you prepared for this solemn event?"

"Oh, yes, indeed, doctor," Jethro beamed. "I's got fried chicken, two hams, three gallons of ice cream, pickles, cake—”

"No, no, Jethro," said the minister, with a smile. "No, no, my friend; I mean spiritually prepared."

"Well, I reckon! I's got two demijohns of whisky and three cases of beer, an' if dat ain't enuff I'll git more."-Washington Star.

ENGINEERS KNOW THEIR DUTY. "The train struck the man, did it not?" asked the lawyer of the engineer at the trial.

"It did, sir," said the engineer.

"Was the man on the track, sir?" thundered the lawyer.

"On the track?" asked the engineer. "Of course he was. No engineer worthy of his job would run his train into the woods after a man, sir."

PERIOD OF JOY FOR CASEY. Casey's wife was at the hospital, where she had undergone a very serious operation a few days before.

Mrs. Kelly called to inquire as to Mrs. Casey's condition.

"Is she restin' quietly?" Mrs. Kelly asked. "No, but I am," said Casey.

The superintendent was examining the school. "Who wrote 'Hamlet?" he asked. A very frightened little boy rose and said "Please, sir, I didn't." The superintendent was afterward relating the incident to the members of the school board. "Haw, haw!" guffawed one. "I bet the little rascal did all the time."

AN OLD-FASHIONED RECIPE.

A negro mammy had a family of boys so well behaved that one day her mistress asked:

"Sally, how did you raise your boys so well?"

"Ah'll tell yo', missus," answered Sally. "Ah raise dem boys with a barrel stave, an' Ah raise 'em frequent."-Everybody's.

THE BRIGAND.

Pullman Porter: "Boss, yo' sho' am dusty."

Passenger (resignedly): "Well, you may brush off about a nickel's worth."-Judge.

DELEGATES TO CONVENTION OF JOINT PROTECTIVE BOARD, CANADIAN PACIFIC RAILWAY, AND FRATERNAL DELEGATES, HELD IN TORONTO, ONTARIO, APRIL, 1915.

Top Row-W. G. Lloyd, H. Todd, G. Graves, B. A. Haskins, A. Kilpatrick, J. R. Wells, T. Griffin, J. Lawton, W. A. Row, J. Mitchell, T. White,

E. Mattock, R. D. New.

Middle Row-W. Brumpton, H. D.

Secretary-Treasurer:
Bottom Row

Davis: T. Broad, Vice-Chairman; F. McKenna, Chairman:

J. A. Austen, W. H. Pooler WA. Wiley. J.