 Section 1 of O'Henriyanna. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Phil Shempf. O'Henriyanna by O'Henri. The Crucible. Hard ye may be in the tumult, red to your battle hilts. Blow, give for blow in the foray, cunningly ride in the tilts. But when the roaring is ended, tenderly, unbeguiled, turn to a woman, a woman's heart, and a child's to a child. Test of the man, it is worth be in accord with the ultimate plan, that he be not, to his marring, always an utterly man. That he bring out of the tumult, fitter and undefiled, to a woman the heart of a woman, to children the heart of a child. Good when the bugles are ranting, it is to be iron and fire, good to be oak in the foray, ice to a guilty desire. But when the battle is over, marvel and wonder the while, give to a woman a woman's heart and a child's to a child. End of section one. Section two of O'Henriyanna by O'Henri. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Recording by Phil Shempf. A lunar episode. The scene was one of supernatural weirdness. Tall, fantastic mountains reared their seemed peaks over a dreary waste of igneous rock and burnt out lava beds. Deep lakes of black waters stood motionless as glass under frowning, honey-combed crags, from which ever an anon dropped crumbled masses with a sullen plunge. Vegetation there was none. Bitter cold rain and ridges of black and shapeless rocks cut the horizon on all sides. An extinct volcano loomed against a purple sky, black as night and old as the world. The firmament was studded with immense stars that shone with a wand and spectral light. Orion's belt hung high above. Aldebaran faintly shone millions of miles away, and the earth gleamed like a new risen moon with a lurid, blood-like glow. On a lofty mountain that hung toppling above an ink-black sea stood a dwelling built of stone. From its solitary window came a bright light that gleamed upon the misshapen rocks. The door opened, and two men emerged locked in a deadly struggle. They swayed and twisted upon the edge of the precipice, now one getting the advantage, now the other. Strong men they were, and stone rolled from their feet into the valley as each strove to overcome the other. At length one prevailed. He seized his opponent and, raising him high above his head, hurled him into space. The vanquished combatant shot through the air like a stone from a catapult in the direction of the luminous earth. That's three of them this week, said the man in the moon as he lit a cigarette, and turned back into the house. Those New York interviewers are going to make me tired if they keep this thing up much longer. End of section two. Section three of O'Henriana by O'Henri. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Recording by Phil Schimpf. Three paragraphs. Copy, yelled the small boy at the door. The sick woman lying on the bed began to move her fingers aimlessly upon the worn counterpain. Her eyes were bright with fever. Her face, once beautiful, was thin and pain-drawn. She was dying. But neither she nor the man who held her hand and wrote on a paper tablet knew that the end was so near. Three paragraphs were lacking to fill the column of humorous matter that the foreman had sent for. The small pay it brought them barely furnished shelter and food. Medicine was lacking, but the need for that was nearly over. The woman's mind was wandering. She spoke quickly and unceasingly, and the man bit his pencil and stared at the pad of paper, holding her slim, hot hand. Oh, Jack! Jack! Papa says no. I cannot go with you. Not love you, Jack. Do you want to break my heart? Oh, look! Look! The fields are like heaven, so filled with flowers. Why have you no ice? I had ice when I was at home. Can't you give me just a little piece? My throat is burning." The humorist wrote, When a man puts a piece of ice down a girl's back at a picnic, does he give her the cold shoulder? The woman feverishly put back the loose masses of brown hair from her burning face. Jack! Jack! I don't want to die. Who is that climbing in the window? Oh, it's only Jack. And here is Jack holding my hand, too. How funny! We are going to the river tonight. Walk quiet, broad, dark, whispering river. Hold my hand tight, Jack. I can feel the water coming in. It is so cold. How queer it seems to be dead, dead, and see the trees above you. The humorist wrote, On the dead square, a cemetery lot. Copy, sir, yelled the small boy again, Forms locked in half an hour. The man bit his pencil into splinters. The handy-held was growing cooler. Surely her fever must be leaving. She was singing now a little crooning song she might have learned at her mother's knee, and her fingers had ceased moving. They told me, she said weakly and sadly, That hardships and suffering would come upon me for disobeying my parents and marrying Jack. Oh, dear, my head aches so I can't think. No, no, the white dress with lace sleeves. Not that black dreadful thing. Sailing, sailing, sailing. Where does this river go? You are not, Jack. You are too cold and stern. What is that red mark on your brow? Come, sister, let's make some daisy chains, and then hurry home. There is a great black cloud above us. I'll be better in the morning. Jack, if you'll hold my hand tight. Jack, I feel light as a feather. I'm just floating, floating, right into the cloud, and I can't feel your hand. Oh, I see her now, and there is the old love and tenderness in her face. I must go to her, Jack. Mother, mother! The man wrote quickly. A woman generally likes her husband's mother-in-law the best of all his relatives. Then he sprang to the door, dashed a column of coffee into the boy's hand, and moved swiftly to the bed. He put his arms softly under the brown head that had suffered so much, but it turned heavily aside. The fever was gone. The humorist was alone. End of section three. Section four of O'Henriana by O'Henri. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Recording by Phil Shempf, Bulger's friend. It was rare sport for a certain element in the town when old Bulger joined the Salvation Army. Bulger was the town's odd character, a shiftless, eccentric old man, and a natural foe to social conventions. He lived on the bank of a brook that bisected the town in a wonderful hut of his own contriving, made of scrap lumber, clapped boards, pieces of tin, canvas, and corrugated iron. The most adventurous boys circled Bulger's resident at a respectful distance. He was intolerant of visitors, and repelled the curious with belligerent and gruff in hospitality. In return, the report was current that he was of unsound mind, something of a wizard, and a miser with a vast amount of gold buried in or near his hut. The old man worked at odd jobs, such as weeding gardens and whitewashing, and he collected old bones, scrap metal, and bottles from alleys and yards. One rainy night, when the Salvation Army was holding a slenderly attended meeting in its hall, Bulger had appeared and asked permission to join the ranks. The sergeant in command of the post welcomed the old man, with that cheerful lack of prejudice that distinguishes the peaceful militants of his order. Bulger was at once assigned to the position of base drummer, to his evident, although grimly expressed, joy. Possibly the sergeant, who had the success of his command at heart, perceived that it would be no mean token of successful warfare to have the new recruit thus prominently displayed. Representing, as he did, if not a brand from the burning, at least a well-chard and sap-dried chunk. So every night, when the army marched from its quarters to the street corner where open-air services were held, Bulger stumbled along with his base drum behind the sergeant and the corporal, who played sweet by and by, and only an armor-bearer, in unison upon their cornets, and never before in that town was base drum so soundly whacked. Bulger managed to keep time with the cornets upon his instrument, but his feet were always woefully unrhythmic. He shuffled and staggered and rocked from side to side like a bear. Truly he was not pleasing to the sight. He was a bent, ungainly old man, with a face screwed to one side and wrinkled like a dry prune. The red shirt, which proclaimed his enlistment into the ranks, was a misfit, being the outer husk of a Leviathan corporal who had died some time before. This garment hung upon Bulger in folds. His old brown cap was always pulled down over one eye. These and his wobbling gait gave him the appearance of some great simian, captured and imperfectly educated in pedestrian and musical maneuvers. The thoughtless boys and undeveloped men who gathered about the street services of the army badgered Bulger incessantly. They called upon him to give oral testimony to his conversion and criticize the technique and style of his drum performance. But the old man paid no attention whatever to their jeers. He rarely spoke to anyone except when, oncoming and going, he gruffly saluted his comrades. The sergeant had met many odd characters and knew how to study them. He allowed the recruit to have his own silent way for a time. Every evening Bulger appeared at the hall, marched up the street with the squad and back again. Then he would place his drum in the corner where it belonged and sit upon the last bench in the rear until the hall meeting was concluded. But one night the sergeant followed the old man outside and laid his hand upon his shoulder. Comrade, he said, is it well with you? Not yet, sergeant, said Bulger. I'm only trying. I'm glad you come outside. I've been wanting to ask you. Do you believe the Lord would take a man in if he come to him late like? Kind of a last resort, you know. Say, a man who'd lost everything, home and property and friends and health. Wouldn't it look mean to wait till then and try to come? Bless his name. No, said the sergeant. Come ye that are heavy-leading. That's what he says. The poorer, the more miserable, the more unfortunate, the greater his love and forgiveness. Yes, I'm poor, said Bulger. Awful, poor and miserable. You know when I can think best, sergeant? It's when I'm beating the drum. Other times there's a kind of muddled roaring in my head. The drum seems to kind of soothe and calm it. There's a thing I'm trying to study out, but I ain't made it yet. Do you pray, comrade? asked the sergeant. No, I don't, said Bulger. What'd it be the use? I know where the hitch is. Don't it say somewhere for a man to give up his own family or friends and serve the Lord? If they stand in his way, not otherwise. I got no family, continued the old man, nor no friends, but one, and that one is what's driven me to ruin. Free yourself, cried the sergeant. He's no friend, but an enemy who stands between you and salvation. No answered Bulger emphatically. No enemy. The best friend I ever had. But you say he's driven you to ruin. The old man chuckled dryly and keeps me in rags and living on scraps and sleeping like a dog in a patched up kennel. And yet I never had a better friend. You don't understand, sergeant. You lose all your friends, but the best one. And then you'll know how to hold on to the last one. Do you drink, comrade? asked the surgeon. Not a drop in twenty years, Bulger replied. The sergeant was puzzled. If this friend stands between you and your soul's peace, give him up, was all he could find to say. I can't, now, said the old man, dropping into a fretful wine. But you just let me keep on beating the drum, sergeant, and maybe I will sometime. I'm a tryon. Sometimes it comes so near, thinking it out, that a dozen more licks on the drum would settle it. I get mighty nigh to the point, and then I have to quit. You'll give me more time, won't you, sergeant? All you want, and God bless you, comrade. Pound away until you hit the right note. Afterward the sergeant would often call to Bulger. Time, comrade. Knock that friend of yours out yet? The answer was always unsatisfactory. One night at a street corner, the sergeant prayed loudly that a certain struggling comrade might be parted from an enemy who was leading him astray under the guise of friendship. Bulger, in sudden and plainly evident alarm, immediately turned his drum over to a fellow volunteer and shuffled rapidly away down the street. The next night he was back again at his post, without any explanation of his strange behavior. The sergeant wondered what it all meant, and took occasion to question the old man more closely as to the influence that was retarding the peace his soul seemed to crave. But Bulger carefully avoided particularizing. It's my own fight, he said. I've got to think it out myself. Nobody else don't understand. The winter of 1892 was a memorable one in the south. The cold was almost unprecedented, and the snow fell many inches deep where it had rarely whiten the ground before. Much suffering resulted among the poor, who had not anticipated the rigorous season. A little squad of salvationists found more distress than they could relieve. Charity in that town, while swift and liberal, lacked organization. One in that balmy and productive climate existed only in sporadic cases, and these were nearly always quietly relieved by generous neighbors. But when some sudden disastrous onslaught of the elements, storm, fire, or flood, occurred, the impoverished sufferers were often too slowly aided because system was lacking, and because charity was called upon to sell them to become a habit. At such times the Salvation Army was very useful, yet soldiers went down into alleys and byways to rescue those who, unused to extreme want, had never learned to beg. At the end of three weeks of hard freezing, a level foot of snow fell. Hunger and cold struck the improvident, and a hundred women, children, and old men were gathered into the Army's quarters to be warmed and fed. Each day the blue uniformed soldiers slipped in and out of the stores and offices of the town, gathering pennies and dimes and quarters to buy food for the starving. And in and out of private houses the Salvationists went with baskets of food and clothing, while day by day the mercury still crouched among the tens and twenties. Alas, business, that scapegoat was dull. The dimes and quarters came more reluctantly from tales that jingled not when they were opened. Yet in the big hall of the Army the stove was kept red-hot, and upon the long table set in the rear could always be found at least coffee and bread and cheese. The sergeant and his squad fought valiantly. At last the money on hand was all gone, and the daily collections were diminished to a variable sum, inadequate to the needs of the dependents of the Army. Christmas was near at hand. There were fifty children in the hall, and many more outside, to whom that season brought no joy beyond what was brought by the Army. None of these little pensioners had thus far lacked necessary comforts, and they had already begun to chatter of the tree. That one bright vision in the sober monotony of the year, never since the Army first came had it failed to provide a tree and gifts for the children. The sergeant was troubled. He knew that an announcement of no tree would grieve the hearts under those thin cotton dresses and ragged jackets, more than wood, stress of storm, or scanty diet, and yet there was not money enough to meet the daily demands for food and fuel. On the night of December the twentieth, the sergeant decided to announce that there could be no Christmas tree. It seemed unfair to allow the waxing anticipation of the children to reach too great a height. The evening was colder, and still the deep snow was made deeper by another heavy fall, swept upon the wings of a fierce and shrill-voiced northern gale. The sergeant, with sodden boots and redden countenance, entered the hall at nightfall and removed his threadbare overcoat. Soon afterward the rest of the faithful squad drifted in. The women heavily shawled, the men stamping their snow-crusted feet loudly upon the steep stairs. After the slender supper of cold meat, beans, bread, and coffee had been finished, all joined in a short service of song and prayer, according to their daily habit. Far back in the shadows sat Bulger. For weeks his ears had been deprived of that aid to thought, the booming of the big bass drum. His wrinkled face wore an expression of gloomy perplexity. The army had been too busy for the regular services and parades. The silent drum, the banners, and the cornets were stored in a little room at the top of the stairway. Bulger came to the hall every night and ate supper with the others. In such weather work of the kind the old man usually did was not to be had, and he was bitten to share the benefits conferred upon the other unfortunate. He always left early, and it was surmised that he passed the nights in his patchwork hut, that structure being waterproof and weathertight beyond the promise of its outward appearance. Of late the sergeant had had no time to bestow upon the old man. At seven o'clock the sergeant stood up and wrapped upon the table with a lump of coal. When the room became still, he began his talk, that rambled off into a halting discourse quite unlike his usual positive and direct speeches. The children had gathered about their friend in a ragged wriggling and wide awake circle. Most of them had seen the fresh, ruddy countenance of his emerge at the twelfth stroke of a night of splendour from the whiskered mask of a magnificent Santa Claus. They knew now that he was going to speak of the Christmas tree. They kiptoed and listened, fleshed with a hopeful and eager awe. The sergeant saw it, frowned and swallowed hard. Continuing he planted the sting of disappointment in each expectant middle bosom, and watched the light fade from their eyes. There was to be no tree. Renunciation was no new thing to them. They had been born to it. Still a few little ones, in whom hope died hard, sobbed aloud. And Juan, wretched mothers, tried to hush and console them. A kind of voiceless wail went among them, scarcely a protest, rather the ghost of a lament for the childhood's pleasures they had never known. The sergeant sat down and figured cheerlessly, with a stump of a pencil, upon the blank border of a newspaper. Bulger rose and shuffled out of the room without ceremony, as was his custom. He was heard fumbling in the little room in the hallway, and suddenly a thunderous roar broke out, filling the whole building with its booming din. The sergeant started, and then laughed as if his nerves welcomed the diversion. It's only comrade Bulger, he said, doing a little thinking in his own quiet way. The norther rattled the windows and shrieked around the corners. The sergeant heaped more coal into the stove. The increase of that cutting wind bore the cold promise of days, perhaps weeks, of hard times to come. The children were slowly recovering the sad philosophy, out of which the deceptive hope of one bright day had enticed them. The women were arranging things for the night, preparing to draw the long curtain across the width of the hall, separating the children's quarters and theirs from those of the men. About eight o'clock, the sergeant had seen that all was ship-shaped, and was wrapping his woollen comforter around his neck, ready for his cold journey homeward, when footsteps were heard upon the stairway. The door opened, and Bulger came in, covered with snow like Santa Claus, and his red of face, but otherwise much unlike the jolly Christmas Saint. The old man shambled down the hall to where the sergeant stood, drew a wet earth-soiled bag from under his coat, and laid it upon the table. Open it, he said, and motioned to the sergeant. That cheery official obeyed with an indulgent smile. He seized the bottom of the bag, turned it up, and stood with his smile turned to a gape of amazement, gazing at a heap of gold and silver coin that rolled upon the table. Count it, said Bulger. The jingling of the money and wonder at its source had produced a profound silence in the room. For a time nothing could be heard but the hauling of the wind, and the clink of the coins as the sergeant slowly laid them in little separate piles. Six hundred, said the sergeant, stopping to clear his throat. Six hundred and twenty-three dollars, and eighty-five cents. Eighty, said Bulger, mistake of five cents. I thought it out at last, Sergeant, and I'd give up that friend I told you about. That's him. Dollars and cents. The boys was right when they said I was a miser. Take it, Sergeant, and spend it the best way for them that needs it. Not forgetting a tree for the youngens. And hallelujah, cried the sergeant. A new-based drum concluded Bulger. Then the sergeant made another speech. End of Section Four. Section Five of O'Henriana by O'Henri. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Recording by Phil Shempf. A professional secret. The story of a maid made over. Dr. Satterfield Prince, physician to the leisure class, looked at his watch. It indicated five minutes to twelve. At the stroke of the hour would expire the morning term set apart for the reception of his patients in his handsome office apartments. And then the young woman attendant ushered in from the waiting room the last unit of the wealthy and fashionable gathering that had come to patronize his skill. Dr. Prince turned his watch still in hand, his manner courteous, but seeming to invite promptness and gravity in the interview. The last patient was a middle-aged lady, richly dressed, with an amiable and placid face. When she spoke, her voice revealed the drawing of musical slur and intonation of the South. She had come, she leisurely explained, to bespeak the services of Dr. Prince, in the case of her daughter, who was possessed of a most mysterious affliction. And then, femininely, she proceeded to exhaustively diagnose the affliction, informing the physician with a calm certitude of its origin and nature. The diagnosis advanced by the lady, Mrs. Galloway Rankin, was one so marvelously strange and singular in its conception that Dr. Prince, a custom as he was to the conceits and vagarities of wealthy malingerers, was actually dumbfounded. The following is the matter of Mrs. Rankin's statement, briefly reported. She, Mrs. Rankin, was of an old Kentucky family, the Beals. Between the Beals and another historic house, the Rankins had been waged for nearly a century, one of the fiercest and most sanguinary feuds within the history of the state. Each generation had kept alive both the hate and the warfare, until at length it was said that nature began to take cognizance of the sentiment, and Beals and Rankins were born upon the earth as antagonistic toward each other as cats and dogs. So, for four generations the war had waged, and the mountains were dotted with tombstones of both families. At last, for lack of fuel to feed upon, the feud expired with only one direct descendant of the Beals and one of the Rankins remaining, Evelina Beal, aged nineteen, and Galloway Rankin, aged twenty-five. The last immortal shot in the feud was fired by Cupid. The two survivors met, became immediately and mutually enamored, and a miracle transpired on Kentucky soil, a Rankin wedded a Beal. Interposed and irrelevant to the story was the information that coal mines had been discovered later on the Rankin lands, and now the Galloway Rankins were to be computed among the millionaires. All that was long enough ago for there to now be a daughter, twenty years of age, Miss Annabelle Rankin, for whose relief the services of Dr. Prince was petitioned. Then followed, in Mrs. Rankin's statement, a description of the mysterious, though by her readily accounted for, affliction. It seemed that there was a peculiar difficulty in the young ladies' powers of locomotion. In walking, a process requiring the coordination and unanimity of the functions, Dr. Prince, said Mrs. Rankin, would understand and admit the non-existence of a necessity for anatomical specification. There persisted a stubborn opposition, a most contrary and counteracting antagonism. In those successively progressive and generally unconsciously automatic movements necessary to proper locomotion, there was a violent lack of harmony and mutuality. To give an instance cited by Mrs. Rankin, if Miss Annabelle desired to ascend a stairway, one foot would be easily advanced to the step above. But instead of aiding and abetting its fellow, the other would at once proceed to start downstairs. By a strong physical and mental effort, the young lady could walk fairly well for a short distance, but suddenly the rebellious entities would become uncontrollable, and she would be compelled to turn undesirable corners, to enter impossible doorways, to dance, shuffle, sidestep, and perform other undignified and distressing evolutions. After setting forth these lamentable symptoms, Mrs. Rankin emphatically asserted her belief that the affliction was the result of heredity, of the union between the naturally opposing and contrary beel and rankin elements. She believed that the inherited spirit of the ancient feud had taken on physical manifestations, exhibiting them in the person of the unfortunate outcome of the union of opposites. That in, Miss Annabelle Rankin was warring the imperishable antipathy of the two families. In other words, that one of Miss Rankin's, that is to say, that when Miss Rankin took a step, it was a beel step, and the next one was dominated by the bequeath opposition of the Rankin's. Dr. Prince received the communication with his usual grave, professional attention, and promised to call the next day at ten to inspect the patient. Promptly at the hour, his electric runabout turned into the line of stylish autos and handsoms that wait along the pavements before the most expensive hostelry on American soil. When Miss Annabelle Rankin entered the reception parlor of their choice suite of rooms, Dr. Prince gave a little blink of surprise through his brilliantly polished nose glasses. The glow of perfect health and the contour of perfect beauty were visible in the face and form of the young lady, but admiration gave way to sympathy when he saw her walk. She entered at a little run, swayed, stepped off helplessly at a sharp tangent, advanced, marked time, backed off, recovered and siled with a maneuvering rush to a couch, where she rested, with a look of serious melancholy upon her handsome face. Dr. Prince proceeded with his interrogatories in the delicate, reassuringly gentlemanly manner that had brought him so many patrons who placed a value upon those amenities. Miss Annabelle answered frankly and sensibly, indeed, for one of her years. The feud theory of Mrs. Rankin was freely discussed. The daughter also believed in it. Soon the physician departed, promising to call again and administer treatment. Then he buzzed down the avenue and four doors on an ass-faulted side street to the office of Dr. Grumbleton Myers, the great specialist in locomotor ataxia and nerve ailments. The two distinguished physicians shut themselves in a private office, and the great Myers dragged forth at a canter of sherry and a box of Havana's. When the consultation was over, both shook their heads. Fact is, summed up Myers, we don't know anything about anything. I'd say treat symptoms now until something turns up, but there are no symptoms. The feud diagnosis, then, suggested Dr. Prince archly, ridding his cigar of its ash. It's an interesting case, said the specialist, noncommittally. I say, Prince, called Myers, as his collar was leaving. Sometimes, you know, children that fight and quarrel are shut in separate rooms. Doesn't it seem a pity now that bloomers aren't in fashion? By Separt, but they aren't, smiled Dr. Prince, and we must be fashionable at any rate. Dr. Prince burned midnight oil, or its equivalent, a patent-electric, soft-shaded, midnight incandescent, over his case. With such little success did his light shine that he was forced to make a little speech to the rankens full of scientific terms, a thing he conscientiously avoided with his patients, which shows that he was driven to expedient. At last, he was reduced to suggest treatment by hypnotism. Being crowded further, he advised it, and appeared another day with Professor Adami, the most reputable and non-advertising one he could find, among that school of practitioners. Miss Annabelle, gentle and melancholy, fell an easy victim, or should I say subject, to the professor's influence. Previously instructed by Dr. Prince, in the nature of the malady he was about to combat, the dealer in mental drugs proceeded to offer suggestion, in the language of his school, to the afflicted and unconscious young lady, impressing her mind with the conviction that her affliction was moonshine, and her perambulatory powers without impairment. When the spell was removed, Miss Rankin sat up, looking a little bewildered at first, and then rose to her feet, walking straight across the room with the grace, the sureness, and the ease of a Diana, a Leslie Carter, or a Vassar basketball champion. Miss Annabelle's sad face was now lit with hope and joy. Mrs. Rankin, of Southern susceptibility, wept a little, delightedly, upon a minute lace handkerchief. Miss Annabelle continued to walk about firmly and accurately, in absolute control of the machinery necessary for her so to do. Dr. Prince quietly congratulated Professor Adami, and then stepped forward, smilingly rubbing his noseglasses with an air. His position enabled him to overshadow the hypnotizer who, contented to occupy the background temporarily, was busy estimating in his mind how large a bill for services he would dare to embellish the occasion when he should come to the front. Amid repeated expressions of gratitude, the two professional gentlemen made their adieu's, a little elated at the success of the treatment, which, with one of them, had been an experiment, with the other, an exhibition. As the door closed behind them, Miss Annabelle, her usually serious and pensive temper somewhat enliven by the occasion, sat at the piano, and dashed into a stirring march. Outside, the two men moving toward the elevator heard a scream of alarm from her, and hastened back. They found her on the piano stool, with one hand still pressing the keys. The other arm was extended rigidly to its full length behind her, its fingers tightly clenched into a pink and pretty little fist. Her mother was bending over her, joining in the alarm and surprise. Miss Rankin rose from the stool, now quiet, but again depressed and sad. I don't know what did it, she said plaintively. I began to play, and that arm shot back. It wouldn't stay near the piano while the other one was there. A ping-pong table stood in the room. A little game, Miss Rankin, cried Professor Adami daily, trying to feel his way. They played, with the racket in the refractory arm Miss Annabelle played in fine style. Her control of it was perfect. The professor laid down his racket. Ah, a button is loose on my coat, he said, such is the fate of sorrowful bachelors. A needle in thread now, Miss Rankin. A little surprised, but smilingly acquiescence, Annabelle brought the articles from another room. Now thread the needle, if you please, said Professor Adami. Annabelle bit off two feet of the black silk. When she came to thread the needle, the secret was out. As the hand presenting the thread approached the other holding the needle, that arm was jerked violently away. Dr. Prince was first to reduce the painful discovery to words. Dear Miss and Mrs. Rankin, he said, in his most musical consolation baritone. You have been only partially successful. The affliction, Miss Rankin, has passed from your—that is, the affliction is now in your arms. Oh, dear, sighed Annabelle. I have a bee alarm and a Rankin arm, then. Well, I can use one hand at a time, anyway. People won't notice it as they did before. Oh, what an annoyance those feuds were, to be sure. It seems to me they should make laws against them. Dr. Prince looked inquiringly at Professor Adami. That gentleman shook his head. Another day, he said. I prefer not to establish the condition at a lesser interval than two or three days. So, three days afterward they returned, and the Professor replaced Miss Rankin under control. This time there was, apparently, perfect success. She came forth from the trance, and with full muscular powers. She walked the floor with sure rhythmic step. She played several difficult selections upon the piano, the hands and arms moving with propriety and with allied ease. Miss Rankin seemed at last to possess a perfectly well-ordered physical being, as well as a very grateful mental one. A week afterward they wafted into Dr. Prince's office, a youth, generously gilded. The hallmarks of society were deeply writ upon him. I'm Ash Burton, he explained. T. Ripley Ash Burton. You know, I am engaged to Miss Rankin. I understand you have been training her for some breaks in her gates. T. Ripley Ash Burton caught himself. Didn't mean that, you know. Slipped out. Been loafing around stables quite a lot. I say, Dr. Prince, I want you to tell me, candidly, you know. I am awful spoons on Miss Rankin. We're to be married in the fall. You might consider me one of the family, you know. They told me about the treatment you gave her with the, um, uh, medium fellow. That set her up wonderfully, I assure you. She goes freely now, and handles her for, um, I mean, you know, she's over all that old trouble. But there's something else started up that's making the track pretty heavy. So I called. Don't you understand? I have not been advised, said Dr. Prince, of any recurrence of Miss Rankin's indisposition. T. Ripley Ash Burton produced a silver cigarette case, and contemplated it tenderly, receiving no encouragement, he replaced it in his pocket with a sigh. Not a recurrence, he said thoughtfully, but something different. Possibly, I am the only one in a position to know. Hate to discuss it. Reveal Cupid's secrets, you know. Such a jolly low thing to do. But suppose the occasion justifies it. If you possess any information or have observed anything, said Dr. Prince judicially, through which Miss Rankin's condition might be benefited, it is your duty, of course, to apply it in her behalf. I need hardly remind you that such disclosures are held as secrets on professional honor. I believe I mentioned, and said Mr. Ash Burton, his finger still hovering around the pocket containing his cigarette case, that Miss Rankin and I are ever so sweet upon each other. She's a jolly swell girl, if she did come from the Kentucky Mountains. Lately, she's acted awful queerly. She's awful affectionate one minute, and the next, she turns me down like a perfect stranger. Last night I called at the hotel, and she met me at the door of their rooms. Nobody was in sight, and she gave me an awful nice kiss. Engaged, you know, Dr. Prince? And then she fired away and gave me an awful hard slap in the face. I hate the sight of you, she said. How dare you take the liberty! Mr. Ash Burton drew an envelope from his pocket, and extracted from it a sheet of note paper of delicate heliotropic tint. You might read this note, you know. Can't say it's a medical case, upon my honor. But I'm awfully queered, don't you understand? Dr. Prince read the following lines, My dearest Ripley, do come around this evening. There's a dear boy, and take me out somewhere. Mama has a headache, and says she'll be glad to be rid of both of us for a while. To a so sweet of you to send those pond billies. They're just what I wanted for the east windows. Darling boy, you're so thoughtful and good, I am sure you're worth all the love of your very own Annabelle. P.S. On second thoughts, I will ask you not to call this evening, as I shall be otherwise engaged. Perhaps it never occurred to you that there may be two opinions about the vast pleasure you seem to think your society affords others. Both's and small talk of clubhouses and greats treks hardly ever succeed in making a man without other accessories. Very respectfully, Annabelle Rankin. Being deprived of the aid of his consolation cylinders, T. Ripley Ashburton sat, gloomily revolving things in his mind. Ah! exclaimed Dr. Prince aloud, but addressing the exclamation to himself, driven from the arms to the heart. He perceived that the mysterious hereditary contrariety had indeed taken up its lodging in that tender organ of the afflicted maiden. The gilded youth was dismissed, with the promise that Dr. Prince would make a professional call upon Miss Rankin. He did so soon, in the company with Professor Adami, after they had discussed the strange course taken by this annoying heritage of the Beals and Rankins. This time, as the location of the disorder required that the subject be approached with ingenuity, some diplomacy was exercised before the young lady could be induced to submit herself to the professor's art. But evidently she did so, and emerged from the trance as usual, without a trace of unpleasant effect. With much interest and some anxiety, Dr. Prince passed several days awaiting the report of Mr. Ashburton, who indeed, of all others, would have to be depended upon to observe improvements, if any had occurred. One morning that youth dropped in, jubilant. It's all right, you know, he declared, cheerfully. Miss Rankin's herself again. She's as sweet as cream, and the trouble's all off. Never a cross-worded look. I am her ducky, all right. She won't believe what I tell her about the way she used to treat me, the mates that I make up the stories. But it's all right now. Everything's running on rubber tires. Awfully obliged to you and the old boy, err, the medium, you know? And I say now, Dr. Prince, there's a wonderful improvement in Miss Rankin in every way. She used to be rather stiff, don't you understand? Sort of superior in a way. Bookish. And a habit of thinking things, you know? Well, she's cured all round. She's a topper now by any bunch in the set, swell and stylish and lively. Oh, the crowd will fall into her lead when she becomes Mrs. T. Ripley. Now I say, Dr. Prince, you and the, err, medium gentleman, come and take supper tonight with Mrs. and Miss Rankin and me. I'd be delighted if you would now. I would indeed. Just for you to see, you know, the improvement in Miss Rankin. It transpired that Dr. Prince and Professor Adami accepted Mr. Ash Burton's invitation. They convened at the hotel in the rooms of the Rankins. From there they were to proceed to the restaurant, honored by Mr. Ash Burton's patronage. When Miss Rankin swept gracefully into the room, the professional gentlemen felt fascination and surprise conflicting in their feelings. She was radiant, bewitching, lively to effervescence. Her mother and Mr. Ash Burton hung and raptured upon her looks and words. She was most becomingly clothed in pale blue. Oh, bother, she suddenly exclaimed, most vivaciously, I don't like this dress, after all. You must all wait, she commanded, with a captivating fling of her train, until I change. Half an hour later she returned, magnificent in a stunning costume of black lace. I'll walk with you downstairs, Professor Adami, she declared, with a charming smile. Halfway down she left his sight abruptly, enjoying Dr. Prince. You have been such a benefit to me, she said. It's such a relief to get rid of that horrid feud thing, heavens. Ripley, did you forget those bonbons? Oh, this horrid black dress, I shouldn't have worn it. It makes me think of funerals. Did you get the scent of those lilacs then? It makes me think of the Kentucky Mountains. How I wish I were back there. Aren't you fond of New York, then, asked Dr. Prince, regarding her, interestingly? She started at the sound of his voice, and looked up vivaciously. Indeed I am, she said earnestly. I adore New York. Why, I couldn't live without theaters and dances, and my daily drives here. Oh, Ripley, she called over her shoulder. Don't get that bullpup I wanted. I've changed my mind. I want a Pomeranian. Now don't forget, they arrived on the pavement. Oh, a carriage, exclaimed Miss Rankin. I don't want a carriage. I want an Otto. Send it away. All right, said Rashburton cheerily. I thought you said a carriage. In obedience to orders, the carriage rolled away, and an open Otto glided up in its place. Stuffy, smelly thing, cried Miss Rankin, with a winsome pout. We'll walk. Ripley, you and Dr. Prince look out for Mama. Come on, Professor Adami. The indulgent victims of the charming beauty obeyed. The dear, dear child, exclaimed Mrs. Rankin happily to Dr. Prince, how full of spirits and life she is getting to be. She's so much improved from her old self. Lots, said Ashburton proudly and fatuously. She's picked up the regular metropolitan gates. She can swell, don't begin to express her. She's cut out the pence of thought business, up to date. Why, she changes her mind every two minutes. That's Annabelle. At the fashionable restaurant, where they were soon seated, Dr. Prince found his curiosity and interest engaged by Miss Rankin's behavior. She was in an agreeably fascinating humor. Her actions were such as might be expected from an adored child, whose vacillating whims were indulged by groveling relatives. She ordered article after article from the bill of fair, petulantly contramanding nearly everyone when they were set before her. Waiters flew and returned, collided, conciliated, apologized, and danced at her bidding. Her speech was quick and lively, deliciously inconsistent, abounding in contradictions, conflicting statements, bulls, discrepancies, and nonconformities. In short, she seemed to have acquired within the space of a few days all that inconsequent illogical frothiness that passes current among certain circles of fashionable life. Mr. T. Ripley Ashburton showed a doting appreciation and an added delight at the new charms of his fiancée, charms that he at once recognized as the legal tender of his set. Later, when the party had broken up, Dr. Prince and Professor Adami stood for a moment at a corner where their ways were to diverge. Well, said the Professor, who was genially softened by the excellent supper and wine, this time our young lady seems to be more fortunate. The malady has been eradicated completely from her entity. Yes, sir, in good time our school will be recognized by all. Dr. Prince scrutinized the handsome, refined countenance of the hypnotist. He saw nothing there to indicate that his own diagnosis was even guessed at by that gentleman. To say, he made answer, she appears to have recovered as far as her friends can judge. When he could spare the time, Dr. Prince again invaded the sanctum of the great Grumbleton Myers, and together they absorbed the poison of nicotine. Yes, said the great Myers, when the door was open and Dr. Prince began to ooze out with the smoke, I think you have come to the right decision. As long as none of the persons concerned has any suspicion of the truth and is happy in the present circumstances, I don't think it necessary to inform him that the feuditus bilorum et rankinorum, how's the Latin doctor, has only been driven to Miss Rankin's brain. End of Section 5 Section 6 of O'Henriana by O'Henri. This Libra box recording is in the public domain. According by Phil Shempf, the elusive tenderloin. There is no tenderloin. There never was. That is, none that you could run a tape line around. The word really implies a condition or a quality, much as you would say, reprehensibility or cold feet. Meats and bounds have been assigned to it, I know. Bill is separated from 14th to 42nd and, as far west as, et cetera, but the larger meaning of the word remains with me. Confirmation of my interpretation of the famous Slaughterhouse noun adjective came to me from Bill Jeremy, a friend from out of the west. Bill lives in a town on the edge of the prairie dog country. At times Bill yearns to maintain the tradition that ginger shall be hot in the bouth. He brought his last yearning to New York, and it devolved upon me. You know what that means. I took Bill to see the cavity that has been drilled in the city's tooth, soon to be filled with the new gold subway, and the Eden Museum, and the Flatiron, and the crack in the front window pane of Russell Sage's house, and the old man that threw the stone that did it when he was a boy. And I asked Bill what he thought of New York. You may mean well, said Bill, with a gentle reproach, but you've got in a groove. You thought I was underwear buyer for the Blue Front Dry Goods Emporium of Pine Knob North Carolina, didn't ya? Or the junior partner of Slow Coach and Green of Gigi Wokomi State of Goober's. You've gone for the fall stock of jeans, lingerie, and wet stones. Don't treat me like a business friend. Do you suppose the wild, insensate longing I feel for metropolitan gaiety is going to be satisfied by wax works and razorback architecture? Now, you get out the old envelope with the itinerary on it, and cross out the Birken Bridge, and the cab that Morgan rides home in, and the remaining objects of interest. I'm going it alone. The tenderloin, well done, is what I shall admire for to see. Bill Jeremy has a way of doing as he says he will. So I did not herd upon him the bridge, or Carnegie Hall, or the Great Tomb, wonders that the unselfish New Yorker reserves unseen for his friends. That evening Bill descended unprotected upon the tenderloin. The next day he came and put his feet upon my desk and told me about it. This tenderloin, said he, is a cross between a fake sideshow and a foot race. It's a movable feast, something like Easter, or trying to eat spaghetti with chopsticks. Last night I put all my money but nine dollars under a corner of the carpet, and started out. I had along a bill affair of this here tenderloin. It said it begins at 14th Street and runs to 42nd, with 4th Avenue and 7th on each side of it. Well, I started up from 14th, so I wouldn't miss any of it. Lots of people was traveling on the streets in a hurry. Thinks I, the tenderloin sizzling tonight. If I don't hurry I won't get a seat at the performance. Most of the crowd seemed to be going up, and I went up. And then they seemed to be going down, and I went down. I asked a man in a light overcoat with a blue jaw leaning against a lamppost. Where was this tenderloin? Up that way, he says, waving his fingering. How will I know it when I get to it, I asks. Yah, says he, like he was sick. Easy. You'll see a flax-headed call, steak and a doll in a 98-cent shirt waist, to a cheese sandwich in Sassaparilla, and five Salvation Army corporals waiting round for it to change. There'll be a phonograph playing, and nine cops getting ready to raid the joint. That'll be it. I asked that fellow where I was then. Two blocks from Dupont, says he. I goes on uptown, and see in nothing particular in the line of sinful delight, I strikes Crosstown to another avenue. That was six, I reckon. People was still walking up and down, putting first one foot in front and then the other in the irreligious and wicked manner that I suppose has given the tenderloin its frivolous reputation. Streetcars was running past, most impious and unregenerate, and the profligate dagos was splitting chestnuts to roast with a wild abandon that reminded me considerably of Duens in Paris, France. The dissipated bootbikes was sleeping in their chairs, and the rose-penic whistles sounded gay and devilish among the mad throng that leaned again the onen posts. A fellow with a high hat and brass buttons gets down off the top of his covered sulky and says to me, Kepsa, whereabouts is this tenderloin, Colonel? I asks. You're right in the center of it, boss, says he. You are standing right now on the wickedest corner in New York. Not ten feet from here, a pushcart man had his pocket picked last night. And if you're here for a week, I can show you at least two moonlit trolley parties go by on the new Amsterdam line. Look here, says I. I'm out for a razzoo. I've got nine iron medallions of liberty wearing holes in my pocket mining. I want to split this tenderloin in two if there's anything in it. Now put me on to something that's real degraded and boisterous and sizzling with cultured and uproarious sin, something in the way of metropolitan vice that I can be proud of when I go back home. Ain't you got any civic pride about you? This sulky driver scratch the heel of the chin. Just now, boss, says he, everything's laying low. There's a tip out that Jerome's cigarettes ain't agreeing with him. If it was any other time, say, says he, like an idea struck him. How would you like to take in the all night restaurants, lots of electric lights, boss, and people in fun? Sometimes they laugh right out loud. Out-of-town visitors mostly visit our restaurants. Get away, says I. I'm beginning to think your old tenderloin is nothing but the Butcher's article. A little spice and infamy and audible riot is what I'm after. If you can't furnish it, go back and climb on your denny barouche. We have restaurants out west, I tells him, where we eat grub attended by artificial light and laughter. Where is the boasted badness of your unjustly vituperated city? The fella rubs his chin again. The divine, oh, boss, says he, right now, you see, Jerome. And then he buds out with another idea. Tell you what, says he, be the very thing. You jump in my cab and I'll drive you over to Brooklyn. My arm's given a U-car party tonight, says he, because Miles O'Reilly is busy watching the Natatorium. Somebody tipped him off, it was a pool room. Can you play U-car? The cab will be 350 an hour. Jump right in, boss. That was the best I could do on the wickedest corner in New York. So I walks over where it's more righteous. Hoping there might be something doin' among the Pharisees. Everything so far as I could see was as free from guile as a hammock in a Chautauqua picnic. The people just walked up and down, speakin' at chrysanthemum shows and oratorios, and enjoyin' the misbegotten reputation of bein' the wickedest rakes on the continent. It's too bad, Bill, I said, that you were disappointed in the tenderloin. Didn't you have a chance to spend any of your money? Oh, yes, said Bill. I managed to drop one dollar over on the edge of the sinful district. I was goin' along down a boulevard when I hears an awful hollerin' and fussin' that sounded good. It reminded me of a real enjoyable roughhouse out west. Some fellow was quarrelin' at the top of his voice, usin' cuss words and callin' down all kinds of damnation about somethin'. The sounds comin' out through a big door in a high building, and I went to see the fun. Things I'll get a small slice of this here tenderloin anyhow. Well, I went in, and that's where I dropped the dollar. They came around and collected it. What was inside, Bill, I asked? A fella told me when we came out, said Bill, it was a church, and one of these preachers that mixes up in politics was denouncin' the evils of the tenderloin. End of Section 6 Section 7 of O'Henriana by O'Henri. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Recording by Phil Shempf. The Struggle of the Outliers. Again today, at a certain street on the ragged boundaries of the city, Lawrence Holcomb stopped the trolley car and got off. Holcomb was a handsome, prosperous businessman of 40, a man of high social standing and connections. His comfortable suburban residence was some five miles further out on the car line, from the street where so often of late he had dropped off the outgoing car. The conductor winked at a regular passenger, and nodded his head archly in the direction of Holcomb's hurrying figure. Getting to be a regular thing, commented the conductor. Holcomb picked his way gingerly down a roughly graded side street, infested with ragged urchins and impeded by abandoned tinware. He stopped at a small cottage, fenced in with a patch of stony ground, with a few stunted shade trees growing about it. A stout, middle-aged woman was washing clothes in a tub at one side of the door. She looked around and smiled a smile of fat recognition. Good evening, Mr. Holcomb. Is it yourself again? You'll find Katie inside, sir. Did you speak to her for me, asked Holcomb in a low voice? Did you try to help me gain her consent as you promised to do? Sure, and I did that. But, sir, you know girls will be girls, and the more you coax them, the willfuler they get. Tis your own pleaden that'll get her, if anything, will. And I hopes you may, for I tells her she'll never get a better offer than yours, sir. Tis a good girl she is, and a tidy hand for anything from the kitchen to the parlor. Now, she's never a fault except, maybe, a bit too much lichen for dances and ruffles and ribbons. But that's natural to her age. And good looks, if I do say it myself, be in her meadow. Mr. Holcomb, you can spake again to Katie, sir, and maybe this time you'll have luck unless Danny Conlon, the wild gassoon, has been at it again, over persuading her against you. Holcomb turns slightly pale, and his lips closed tightly for a moment. I've heard of this fellow Conlon before. Why does he interfere? Why does he stand in the way? Is there anything between him and Katie? Does Katie care for him? Mrs. Flynn gave a sigh, like a puff of a locomotive, and flapped upon the washboard with a sodden garment that sent Holcomb well-splashed, six feet away. Ask me no questions about what's in a girl's heart, and I'll tell you no lies. Her own mother can't tell any more than yourself, Mr. Holcomb. Holcomb stepped inside the cottage. Katie Flynn, with rolled-up sleeves, was ironing a dress of flouched muslin. Criticism of Holcomb's deviation from his own sphere to this star of lower orbit must have waned at the sight of the girl. Her beauty was of the most solvent and convincing sort. Dusky Irish eyes, one great braid of jetty shining hair, a crimson mouth, dimpling and shaping itself to every mood of its owner, a figure strong and graceful, seemingly full of imperishable life and action. Katie Flynn was one to be sought after and striven for. Holcomb went and stood by her side as she ironed and watched the light play of muscles rolling beneath the satiny skin of her rounded forearms. Katie, he said, his voice concealing a certain anxiety beneath the wooing tenderness. I have come for my answer. It isn't necessary to repeat what we have talked over so often, but you know how anxious I am to have you. You know my circumstances and position, and that you will have every comfort and every privilege that you could ask for. Say yes, Katie, and I'll be the luckiest man in this town today. Kate said her ironed down with a metallic click and leaned her elbows upon the ironing board. Her great blue-black eyes went, in their Irish way, from sparkling fun to thoughtful melancholy. Oh, Mr. Holcomb, I don't know what to say. I know you'd be kind to me and give me the best home I could ever expect. I'd like to say yes, indeed I would. I'd about decided to tell you so. But there's Danny. He objects so. Danny again. Holcomb strode up and down the room, impatiently frowning. Who is this fellow Conlon, Katie? He asks. Every time I nearly get your consent, he comes between us. Does he want you to live always in this cottage for the convenience of his mightiness? Why do you listen to him? He wants me, said Katie, in the voice of a small, spoiled child. Well, I want you too, said Holcomb, masterfully. If I could see this wonderful Mr. Conlon in the persuasive tongue, I'd argue the matter with him. He's been the champion middleweight fighter of this town, said Katie, a bit mischievously. Oh, has he? Well, that doesn't frighten me, Katie. In fact, I'm not sure but what I'd tackle him a few rounds myself, with you for the prize. Although I'm somewhat rusty with the gloves. Quist, there he comes now, exclaimed Katie. Her eyes widening a little with apprehension. Holcomb looked out the door and saw a young man coming up from the gate. He walked with an easy swagger, his face was smooth and truculent, but not bad. He wore a cap pulled down to one eye. He walked inside the house and stopped at the door of the room in which stood his rival and the bone of contention. You're after my girl again, aren't you? He grumbled, huskily, anomously. I don't like it, do you see? I told her so and I'll tell you so. She stays here. For ten cents I'd knock your block off, you see? Now Mr. Conlon began Holcomb, striving to avoid the argumentum ad hominem. Listen to reason, it's only fair to let Katie choose for herself. Is it quite the square thing to try to prevent her from doing what she prefers to do? If it had not been for your interference, I would have had her a long time ago. For five cents, pursued the unmoved Mr. Conlon, lowering his terms, I'd knock your block off. Into Holcomb's eye there came the light of desperate resolve. He saw but one way to clear the obstacle from his path. I am told, he said quietly and firmly, that you are a fighter. Your mind seems to dwell upon physical combat as the solution to all questions. Now Conlon, I'm no scrapper, but I'll fight you to a finish any time within the next three minutes to see who gets the girl. If I win, she goes with me. If you win, you have your way, and I'll not trouble her again. Are you a game? Danny Conlon's hard blue eyes looked a sudden admiration. You're all right, he conceded with gruff candor. I didn't think you was that sort. You're all right, it's a dead fair sporting prop, and I'm your company. I'll stand by the results according to terms. Come on, and I'll show you where it can be pulled off. You're all right. Katie tried to interfere, but Danny silenced her. He led Holcomb down the hill to a deep gully that sheltered them from view. Knight was just closing in upon the twilight. They laid aside their coats and hats. Here was a situation in the methodical existence of Lawrence Holcomb, real estate and bond broker, representative businessman of unquestionable habits and social position. Fighting with a professional tough in a gully in a squalid settlement for the daughter of an Irish washerwoman. The combat was a short one. If it had lasted longer, Holcomb would have lost, for both his wind and his science had deteriorated from long lack of training. Therefore he forced the fighting from the start. It is difficult to say to what he owed his victory over the once champion middleweight. One thing in his favor was that Mr. Conlon's nerve and judgment had been somewhat shattered by the effects of a recent spree. Another must have been that Holcomb was stimulated to supreme exertion by an absorbing incentive to win, a prompting more powerful than the instinct of the gladiator, deeper than all motives of gallantry, and more important than the vital influence of love itself. A third fortuitous adjunct was, without doubt, a chance blow upon the projecting chin of the middleweight under which the warrior sank to the gully's grime and remained incapable while Holcomb stood above him and leisurely counted him out. Danny got shakily to his feet and proved to be a true sport. You're all right, he said, but if we had it by rounds, would have ended different. The girl goes with you. Do you see? I'm on the square." They climbed back to the cottage. It settled, announced Holcomb. Mr. Conlon removes his objections. That's straight, said Danny. He's all right. Holcomb had only a scratch and slightly reddened chin from a vicious glancing uppercut from Danny's left. Danny showed punishment. One eye was nearly closed. His lip was bleeding. Katie was a true woman. Such do not at once crown the victor in the turdy for their favor. Pity comes first. The victor must wait for his own. It will come to him. He flew to the vanquished champion and comforted him, ministering to his bruises. Holcomb stood, serene and smiling without jealousy. Tomorrow, he said to Katie, with head erect and beaming eyes. Tomorrow, if you like, answered Katie. Holcomb minced his precarious way up the ragged hill among the obsolete tinware. His car came along a glitter with electric lights and jammed with passengers. He jumped to the rear platform and stood there. At his side he found Weatherly, a friend and neighbor, who had also built a house in the suburbs, a few squares from his own. Hello, Holcomb, yelled Weatherly above the crash of the car. Been looking over some real estate out here? How's Mrs. Holcomb and the young ages? First rate shouted Holcomb. When I left home this morning, how's the family with you? Only so so. Usual suburban troubles. Servants won't stay so far out. Tradesmen object to delivering goods in the country. Cars break down, et cetera. What's pleasing you so? Made a lucky deal today? Holcomb's face wore an ecstatic look. He was fingering a little scratch on his chin with one hand. He leaned his head towards Weatherly's ear. Say, Bob, do you remember that Irish girl, Katie Flynn, that was with the Spafford so long a time? I've heard of her, said Weatherly. They say she stayed a year with them without a single day off, but I don't believe any fairy story like that. It was a fact. Well, I engaged her today for a cook. She's going out to the house tomorrow. Count found you for a lucky dog, shouted Weatherly, with envy in his tones and his heart, and you live four blocks further out than we do. End of section seven. End of O'Henriana by O'Henri.