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white foam that piled and parted before the prow of the boat, the swift bounds over the low waves, and the charm of the river, and the shore with its genial and hospitable homes delighted me.
But after while, I began to wonder about my companions. What was the matter with them? I resolved to go and find out. I crept silently the length of the boat to the sail, then slowly and cautiously I poked my head round the edge I thought I would see what was making them so quiet, and I saw.
"I was an idiot, in the first place," I mused, "to ask him to show her the lady in the moon. That was very dangerous. But, however, it's all done now, and I had better go back and sit down."
I knew it was no concern of mine what happened behind the sails.
So I just went back and sat down in the prow. TAD.
Told in a Smoking Car.
"Speaking of scraps," said an imposing gentleman in a silk hat, arranging one knee with the greatest nicety across the other, while the passengers within hearing distance turned an attentive ear in his direction. "I was once involved in a curious and embarrassing scrape myself. It was three years ago, when I was making a professional tour through California. Hypnotist, you know," drawing forth his card which he presented to the gentleman in the next chair, while the attention of his auditors deepened perceptibly. "I had been giving a lecture in a small town a score or two of miles up the valley from Sacramento, and as is my custom on such accasions, called upon my audience for hypnotic subjects. Among the young men who presented themselves upon the stage, I chose a remarkably sensitive, responsive young fellow, who lent himself most willingly and satisfactorily to my service. At the close of my entertainment, I imposed, as is also my custom, upon my subjects, the performance of a task on the following afternoon. In this instance the task involved a trip to the nearest
town seven miles distant.
"As I impressed my command upon him I was aware of suppressed mirth among the young men upon the stage, and a rustle of disapproval in certain groups in the audience. Being anxious to catch a ten o'clock train for San Francisco, I awakened my subject, briefly expressed my thanks to the audience, and hurrying from the stage to a waiting hack, was soon in the train.
"Last week I was coming down the steps of the 'Tabor Grand' in Denver, when a gentleman stopped and introducing himself, asked if I remembered my subject at L-. You did me a shabby trick; Professor H-,' he continued; 'I suppose you did not know I was to have been married the afternoon following your lecture in our town. Well, you can imagine the feelings of the young lady, when, instead of appearing at the time appointed for the ceremony, I hired a livery rig and started for N-. It took me three years to fix it up with her." H.G.METCALF.
A Summer's Afternoon.
On a broad shaded street there is a large white house, with wide porches and much shrubbery about it giving it a general air of "hamliness," very attractive to the passer-by. One hot summer afternoon while lying in a hammock on the porch of the opposite house where I had arrived only that morning, I saw a tall, slender girl saunter out from the open door into the cool garden, swing her hammock and make herself comfortable. She had a book, but she did not touch it as she lay motionless, looking up into the dark foliage above her. At intervals she sat up and looked anxiously down the road, then settled back for another dream, absolutely quiet except that once in a while I caught a glimpse of a slippered foot moving nervously up and down, tapping the ground.
At last I noticed a man coming down the road, but not from the direction in which the girl had been watching. As he came nearer I saw that he was a tall athletic looking young