those things of his of other days as it had upon the temple of his soul and its inhabitant.

Well (so the story goes), the world went forward at a dizzy rate. There was flame and sword. Ministries rose and fell. Dynasties passed away. Customs handed down from antiquity, and honored among the ancients, were obliterated by mandate and statute. And man wrought things of many sorts in new ways.

On a Friday at about half past two (a pleasant day it was, in the Spring, with new buds coming out in the parks and a new generation of children all about) again in came our old friend to see his friend the publisher. Well, well, and how was he now, and what was new with him? Why, a rotten bad run of cards had been his ever since he had been round before: rheumatism and influenza, dentist and oculist, wife down and brother dead, nothing much accomplished. He sat for a moment and there was no light in him. No (you saw it now, quite), he was a lamp without oil.

He undid the package containing his manuscript. Here was a book (those yellow clippings), well, here was a book! This was a younger book than either of his others. On it was the gleaming dew of his youth. Perhaps a little scrappy, very brief, and, many of them, rather unequal in length—these things; and very light. Ah, that was the point, that was the point! The lightness, the freshness, the spontaneity, the gaiety of the springtime of life! One could not recapture that. It would be impossible, quite impossible, for him now to write such things as these. He did not now think the same way, feel, see the same way, work—the same way. No, no; there comes a hardening of the spiritual and intellectual arteries. This was a younger book, a younger book (and as he leaned forward with finger raised, a light, for an instant, flickered again in his eye) than any of his others.

* * * * *

There was a man at that club when this story was told who remarked: "It is said (is it not?) that Swift, re-reading 'Gulliver' many years after it was written, exclaimed: 'My God, what a genius I had at that time!'"

And another man there at the time reminded us of the place somewhere in the books of George Moore where it is observed that "anybody can have talent at twenty, the thing is to have talent at fifty."

R. C. H.

New York, 1919.

I

THE FORGETFUL TAILOR

HE is a tailor. His shop is down at the corner. When trousers are left with him to be pressed and to have suspender buttons sewed on he is always obligingly willing to promise them by the morrow; or if you are in somewhat of a hurry he will promise that the job shall be done this very night. He is the politest and most obliging of men. He will send those trousers up by a boy directly. He is such a cheerful man.

After the time for those trousers to appear has long gone by and no boy has arrived, it is possible that you may work yourself into a passion. You clap your hat upon your head, storm out of the house, and stride toward that tailor shop. You become a little cooled by the evening air, and you begin to wonder if you have not been a trifle hasty. Perhaps you yourself made some mistake concerning your address; things very similar have happened before now, when you have laid the blame upon another and eventually realized that the fault was your own. It would never do to place yourself in such a position with this tailor—a comparative stranger to you. So you will not become abusive to him until you discover who is in the wrong.

But if the fault is his, mind you, he shall learn your character; you are not a man to be trifled with. This fellow can have no sense of business, or anything else, you think. This shall be the last work he will ever get from you. Such a man should not have a business. You will speak to your friends about this; it will run him out of the neighborhood.

You have been walking rapidly and are tolerably heated again. You arrive at the shop expecting to find the tailor on the defensive, with some inane excuse prepared. But you have resolved that it won't go down. You are considerably surprised, therefore, to discover the tailor seated, comfortably reading a newspaper, by a genial fire. He glances up at you as you open the door. His face is without expression at first. Then he recollects you, and your business flashes upon him. He smiles good-naturedly, then bursts into a hearty laugh. Well, of all things, if he hasn't forgotten all about those trousers until this very minute! It's such a joke, apparently, such a ridiculous situation. He so enters into the spirit of the thing and enjoys it so that you have not the heart to rebuke him. You even begin to appreciate the circumstance yourself.

It is so warm in the tailor-shop and the tailor is so jolly you become almost jovial. The tailor promises to send those trousers around the first thing in the morning. He would promise to have them ready for you in ten minutes if you so desired. Upon leaving, you are tempted to invite the tailor out to have a cigar with you. He is so droll, such a felicitous chap, such a funny dog, that forgetful tailor.

In the morning those trousers have not shown up. You pass the tailor shop on your way downtown. The tailor is standing in his doorway, smoking a cigar and looking altogether very bright and cheerful. When he sees you his face becomes still brighter; he apparently becomes brighter all over, in fact; and his eyes twinkle merrily. "Well! well!" he laughs, and slaps his thighs. He is the most forgetful man. He hardly knows what will become of him.

II

TALK AT THE POST OFFICE

THE attention of a little group within the dusk of the post office and general store was, apparently, still colored by an event which mutilated posters on a dilapidated wagon-shed wall, visible through the doorway in the hot light outside, had advertised. A "Wild Bill" show had lately moved through this part of the world. A large, loosely-constructed, earnest-looking man was speaking to several others, seriously, taking his time, allowing his words time to sink well in as he proceeded.

"Now I have a brother," he was saying, "who I can produce," he added impressively (one realizes that it would be hard to get around this sort of evidence)—"who I can produce, who will take bullet cartridges—Buffalo Bill don't use bullet cartridges—Annie Oakley don't use bullet cartridges—and who will sit right here in this chair—sit right here in this chair where I am now—and show you," he nodded once to each listener, "something about shootin'," concluding, one who reports him felt, somewhat more vaguely than his start had led one to expect.

"Well, Pawnee," began another of the group (from which sobriquet it will be seen that the large man was a personage in matters of shooting), but Pawnee stopped him. It seems he had not finished.

"And if there is anybody that would like to shoot shot with the Old Man," he continued, breathing the two last words loud and strong, "I," said Pawnee, with extreme emphasis on the personal pronoun, "would