THE COLUMBIAN. BLOOMSBUut'l A Priceless 1 Stolen Hour The Fairy Queen sat at her little Mdotool dinner table, for It was din ar time. But the Fairy Queen could it nothing, although a charming ed ition was spread before her prim Me soup, roast ncorn with roseleaf ilad, violet pudding Iced with honey, ad an acorn cupful cf freshest morn lg dew. She glanced at everything nd nlghrd. She even frowned. For le Fairy Queen was n methodical erson, and to waste b'h tne dinner ad the dinner hour vexed her ex jedlngly. The truth was that the Queen had jst something very precious that corning something so precious that ::e just exactly like it could never i obtained again for ever and ever, ben she had lost her temper, then or appetite, atd so finally hei din er. "That makes four losses this morn r.g!" she said angrily. The fays hid their faces In their jbweb pinafores, and the elves, mis llevous young sprite as they usual- were, now sat almost quite still. ;nly their thumbs twiddled. Everybody was, in fact, feeling very comfortable, for ell saw that the .ueen was In a mighty temper. With . wave of her wand she caused the ladstool table and the dinner to van h. Then a boll tinkled. It was th-. immons for all the members of the ousehold to betake themselves to le Queen's presence. Presently the audience chamber was -owded with fays nnd elves nSid xles and gnomes and brownies all mklng pale and startled by the ex-.-aordlnary summons. With another wave of her wand the ?ueen brought a little golden key nkllng down on to the throne upon .hich she sat. She held the key up uigh so that all could see It. "This is the key to my Time Cub oardK" she said, "which key no one i-an use except myself, and which I eep wrapped up In a scrap of blue i loud where none can find lt And et. this morning, when I went to. my Vlme Cupboard, I found that an hour :ad been stolen a wnole beautiful .olden Hour, with Its sixty golden mln ..tes and their sixty golden seconds ;U complete! It was a priceless lour stolen from a glorious summer ay. Now each of you must come be 'ore me and declare on your fairy hon- r that you did not steal that hour." As she spoke the last words a little 'rown gnome, now cream color with sax, slipped out of the audience Camber. Mo one noticed H:n, for all vere too Intent upon the 1 ibinesa be are them. One by one they advanced ad declared upon i'.elr fairy honor aat they had not stolen the golden : OUT. . , ' When the last one had made his -eelaratlon, the Queen waved her and and dismissed them all from her .-esence. Then she summoned the Prime Min- ter, and told him the story of the ..st Hour. He wa3 a giant, with the ce and stature of a grandfather s ock. and his voice was as its chimes. "There Is only one way of finding a who is the culprit," said the Prime .lnlster. "We must examine all tho p ours you have given out and see hich one has been returned blank, id to whom It belongs. For a silver .our and the golden one could not ' ith be used at once." "Oh, I never thought of that," said - ie Queen; "we will go through the "our cellars this very afternoon." To understand the above remarks rfectly you must know that every idnlght the Queen served out to xh of her household twenty-four s!l r Hours for their m-e during the fol ding day. In return she received venty-four silver Hours which had jen used In the day just passed, and pon each Hour was inscribed the ork done during tho sixty minutes, hen all these used Hours were stored way carefully for reference In the 'our cellars. Sometimes, when it was fete day, such a3 tho Queen's annl ersary and similar occasions, half a izea beautiful golden Hours would 3 served out to the de'iir.'.itcd fairies, r a golden Hour was a holiday Hour. '. was one of thece that had been olen! Now there was anions the Queen's itlnue a young foundling. One day hen the Queen was hunting In the rest Just beyond the borders of liry-Land, she had come across a nail boy asleep, with his arm under s curly head. The Fairy Queen took fancy to him. She learned that he as playing truant from school be- iuse he did not like lessons, and be use ne nau made up his mind to go Fairy-Land, where everyone could just what he liked. "So that Is your Idea of Fairy-Land, It?" the Queen had said. "Well, you all go with me to Fairy-Land, and jn you win see for yourself." So Curlypate thus the Queen chrls ned him was taken to the Fairy Uace, and because the Queen liked curly head and pretty manners, he aa made her Cup-bearer. But as time issed, he had gradually fallen from vor on account of his Idleness. One ty he actually let the cup fall, snill ig all the morning dew, and the mean bad had to go without her re- r-eahlng beverage,, for, of course, no iora could be obtained until the next lornlng. After that disgraceful act I carelessness, Curlypate .lost bla arte and his beautiful pi nk-and-white emplexton, and had to take bis place MMgaj tba little brown gnomea vbe acted as scullions in the toyal kitchen. There he found he had to work harder than ever, and every day he lecatim more discontented with his lot. Every night the sight of the twenty, (our silver Hours grew more hateful, until at last he made up his mind that one golden Hour should be his at any rate. So one night as the little bluo cloud containing the golden key of the Time Cupboard was floating back toward the sky, he caught It In a net hanging from a kite which he had made for the purpose. And when all the fairies were asleep he had stolen to the Time Cupboard and taken out the golden Hour, believing that not even the Fairy-Queen herself could discover the thief. He had forgotten the silver Hour which he had had to return to the Queen, and Its mnglo powers, which prevented an untruth from remaining Inscribed upon It. All the afternoon and evening were spent by the queen and prime minis ter In the Hour cellar, the queen wav ing her wand as each pile of silver Hours was approached. At last they stood before the pile which bore the signature of Curly pate, and as soon as the queen waved her wand the pile swayed forward and fell In a scattered heap to the ground. Another wave of the wand and one of the 6llver Hours leaped out from the heap and fell at the queen's feet. The prime minister picked It up and ex amined it. It was blank, except for the date and time and signature. The rulprit was found, but whero was tho golden Hour. Immediately Curlypate was sum moned to the presence of the queen and the prime minister. Curlypate stood before them weeping bitterly. . "Forgive me, oh, forgive me!" he cried, "nnd I will give you back your golden Hour. I took It because I was so tired of the silver ones, with their work, work, work." "If you can bring me back my lost golden Hour, I will forgive you," said the queen, solemnly. Then Curlypate ran away toward the palace garden, smiling through his tears. It would be so easy to give back the golden Hour. He knew where be had lain with the precious thing In his hands. But when be reached the spot, though he eearched the long grass through, and peered underneath the rose trees, he could i find nothing. . The golden Hour .had .vanished! i Sadly be returned to the qeeen. -"Alas, I knew It," said the queen, "for a golden Hour once spent can never be recovered for ever and ever. They drop the golden dust as the min utes pass and the seconds fly, and nothing except a . memory remains Only the Bilver hours of work remain Visible through the work Inwrought upon them. Alas, my precious golden Hour can never, never, be regained! For awhile she sat . with bowed bead. Then she passed sentence upon the culprit Because you have stolen a golden Hour and turned it to the base use of bitter Idleness, you are banished from fairyland. To your own land you re turn, and for a year and a day you shall be a sloth, crawling painfully upon tne trees. Then you shall re turn to your former state, but If ever you play truant from school again you shall come back to fairyland, but to its prison Instead of to its palace. Neither In fairy land nor elsewhere Is there room for Idlers." So Curlypate became a sloth for a year and a day. And then be became a boy again, and went back to school. And, strange to say, nobody seemed to nave missed him except his mother. Breaks. To write a social letter to a man and ask him to reply. Boors are not in society. To ride one's hobby-horse around the dining table, to the confusion of one s nostess. To toast "youth" where Wompn of uncertain age predominate. To ignore one's humble friends for one's Bmart acquaintances. Fortune piays madcap pranks. To boast of our own. Human nntnri. repeats itself and family prejudice is uever convincing. To be Inquisitive. No rifiA pnroD frit a human interrogation point, and he uo asKS an snail know nothing. 10 be too anxious to shlnn ellttpr and glare, conversationally, Is not the highest proof of clever polish. lo seek favor. Merit In dent. Mediocrity seldom achieves, so cially or otherwise. To pretend. Age has eiven tha world wisdom and a keen eye for shams. To gush. The belne about on all necks has strangling pos- Biuuuies. To protest too much. Th refutes doubt, and goodness needs no placard. Queer Chinese Customs. They drink wine hot. Old men fly kites. White Is worn as mourning. Their babies seldom cry. Soldiers wear petticoats. Their compass points to the south. The family name commences first. Carriages are moved by sails. Seat of honor at the left. Visiting cards four feet long. School children sit with backs to the teacher. Fireworks are always set off In day time, , If you offend a Chinaman he may kill himself on your doorstep to spit you; ' They Live. ; The good things that some man did IM jCffl alklaa tmiU aa tvo .teat. i it fc - NEVER HEARDJF ROOSEVELT 8tartllng Ignorance Displayed by Al bert Courtney, Who Comes In from American Deserts. Los Angeles, Cal. Albert Courtney, a mining prospector and British sub ject, heard a few days ago for the first time that Queen Victoria had died. He refused to believe the re port and is looking for an Knglish paper to confirm the news. The name of Theodore Roosevelt waa a strange one to him. Vague rumors came to hi in along In 1801 and 1809 that Spain and the United States were at war. Not an echo of the Boer war reached him. Naturally ping pong, dlabolo, the plays of George Bernard Shaw, the de feat of "Bill" Squires, the suffragist nr ta THIS TeJ3D ' ' . 7i PERSON ? Ml (NEVER. 'EftRD OV movement, the recall election and all the other great facts and occurrences of recent years were matters of which he was Ignorant. This hiatus In the life of Courtney arises from the fact that in the last fifteen years he has been lost to the world on the desert of Nevada and Arizona. He was a recluse and did not see a book or newspaper during the entire period. "And 'ow Is the Queen?" was one of his first questions. "Roosevelt? Roosevelt?" he said to a query. "Never 'eard the name before. And who Is 'e?" Courtney Is seventy years of age and Is well preserved physically and mentally. INDIAN RUNS DOWN WOLVES. On Overtaking His Tired Quarry Uses Club to Kill Him. Superior, Wis. At Solon Snrinas. near here, lives Charley Taylor, a half-breed Indian, who might be a good man to enter in some of the big Marathon races. Taylor is in the wolf hunting busi- ness for the bounty there is In it and catches lae wolves by running theiu down. He hit the hot trail of one of the timber beasts recently, nnd over took the exhausted animal three days later. He killed it with a stout club which he carries when "hunting." Taylor says that thera is nothing re markable about hunting wolves In this manner. With snow shoes a man can run down a wolf, whose pace is slow er in snow, In from one and a half to two days, but Taylor was without snowshoes. All one needs Is endur ance, patience and the ability to fol low the trail of the wolf after dark. The Indians usually hunt in palr3. SWALLOWED HIS SAVINGS. Gold Coin Found In Grave When Eody Was Moved. Paris, France. "tJold from the grave" might be the caption over a curious Incident that has happened at Thaon, near Eplnal. Twelve years ago a workman died there, and his relatives could Ilnd none of his sav ings, although he was known to have accumulated a small sum in gold. Recently his body was moved by the parish authorities to another grave, his son being present at tho transference. When the remains were exposed he was astonished to see a little pile of gold coins lying nmor.s the bones. They were the dead ninn'd savings, amounting to $185, which he had swallowed to prevent his family, with whom he was on bad terms, get ting hold of them. Unravels Mystery of "Ghost" Smokers Bangor, Me. The mystery of the tobacco-consuming ghost nt Beiuon has been unravelled. Old Silas Tooth- acher every night smokes his pipe in the kitchen and then carefullv It in a tin box nailed to the chimney neiiind the stove. Although he often left the pipe half full of tobneco there never was anything but ashes in It the next morning. Toothacher decided to stay awake and watch for tne "ghost." He put the pipe in the box as usual. Through a hole in the chimney a strong cur rent of air blew; the pipe's mouth piece was within half an Inch of this hole; the draught was strong enough to keep the tobacco burning until en tirely consumed. I: Watersprouta One-Fourth Mile High. San Diego, Cak Following a se vere hall and rain storm here two gigantic watersprouta were sighted oft oint Loma, traveling northward at a rapid rate. Wireless operator! state that the spouta wer three miles off libera and one-fourth of a inll blgk. ' ' i , 7 ft AVW.l'i c.D DEATH IN A GRAVE. Jsra-cse YoutVs Attempt to Rury Himself and Die Afterward. A youth of Kobe. Japan, Who rovht to commit suicide by burying himself alive and paid an accomplice 25 cento to spade t'.ie earth upon his collln achieved some degree of notoriety even In Japan, where new things are happening every day. He failed of hU original purpose, however. A policeman was strolling along the bank of the Minatogawa River outside of Kobe one day last month when he happened to spy a Joint of bamboo pipe sticking a few Inches above a mound of fresh earth. Betng a Japan ese nnd also a policeman, his curios ity was especially keen. He looked down the bamboo pipe, but could see r.ot'.iing. Then he began to dig around the pipe. He hnd n considerable wrench put cn his nerves when a voice enme out of the end of the pipe right at. his ear: ''Honorably condescend to f:o away nnd permit me to die peacefully." But the policeman did not go. He dun; seme more and (In ally unearthed a pine box, the length of a man'r. body and about three feet wide. The bamboo pipe led through an opcr.l.s into the box. The polkemni pried o.'i the cover of the box, securely nailed down, and dumped the self-appointed corpse out. Yamada Katsutaro, the man who would thus have died, told the prefect of police that he had wanted to die In a seemly fashion because he was out of work. The lack of food had sur pested to him the practicability of starving himself to death, but In orde. to be sure that he should accomplish this purpose he "hud determined to bury himself in a securely nailed cof fin and await the ravages of hunger. He didu't want to suffocate first, hence the bamboo pipe. The day before the policeman dis covered him, Yamada said, he pro cured the box and the services of a coolie. Then he dug the hole out on Egeyama and after giving the coolie his obi and fifty sen, his last bit of money, he was nailed up In his coflln, lowered into the grave and covered under six feet of soil. Yamada promised never to try bury ing himself alive again and the po lice let him go. The Indian and the Telephone. The Indians are great on using the telephone. They have but little or no use for the local boards, their calls be ing over the long distance. They do not put in a call for the individual. They do not ask for White Eagle at Canton or Flying Cloud at Darlington. The call is for "Any Cheyenne." The same is true as to the Araphahoes; any member of the tribe serves. An Indian puts In a call for any member of his tribe at Canton, Dar lington, Colony, Lawton or any point. It Is "up to " the manager to go out on the street and pick up an Indian. Any one will do, so be is of the tribe asked for. He Is put up to the 'phone and the talk proceeds. The talk being In Indian, no ene knows what it Is about. If an Indian, say In Clinton, wants to reach one of his people, say forty miles from Canton, or any other given point, he calls for one of his tribes men, tells him the message he desires delivered, and It Is his business to de liver It, even thougto it requires a night trip and a storm. A little Indian baby died near Clin ton last year and its mother desired that her relatives attend the funeral services. They lived out on the prairie northwest from Canton. The telephone was used and a member of tho tribe directed to deliver the mes sage to the mother's relatives. It was delivered by a courier across the prairie and canons, and the relatives came In over the Orient next day. Last summer a call came to Clinton for a Kiowa that was a poser for tho manager. However, he found upon inquiry among the Cheyennes that l. e.-o waa one who had lived among t'.:o Kiowas and spoke the dialect. He was put up to the 'phone and received the talk. Che Had a Vocabulary, too. At a London dinner recently the conversation turned to the various methods of working employed by liter r.ry geniuses. Among the examples cited was that of a well-known poet, who, It was said, was wont to arouse his wife about four o'clock In the morning and exclaim, "Maria get up; I've thought of a good word!" Where upon the poet's obedient helpmate would crawl out of bed and make a note ol the thought-of-word. About an hour later, like as not, n new inspiration would seize the bard, whereupon he would again arouse his wife, saying, "Maria, Maria, get up! I've thought of a better word!" The company in general listened to the story with admiration, but a merry-eyed American girl remarked: "Well, if he'd been my husband I should have replied," 'Alpheus, get up yourself; I've thought of a bad word!' " Not All Loss. Quotations cleverly malapropos or neatly distorted furnish half the wit of the professional humorist. Never the less, when suoh a verbal misstep Is spontaneous, there Is often real fun In it. A young man bad been out sailing with his sister and a friend of her. He did not know particularly well the" fine points of the art, and on trying to make the landing against a bead wind, he exclaimed, after several vain attempts : "Well, it Is better to havn luffed nH lost tian never to have luffed at all!" ODCP.S MOVE 8 LOWLY. I.nredlblle Time Required to Travel Short Distances. It has been ascertained as the re sult of experiments conducted by Frof. Zoleny of the t'nlverslty of Minneso ta that the diffusion of odors through the atmosphere is much slower than .ii commonly supposed. The profes Rcir has Investigated this phenomenon e:.j.erlnientlly, and he finds that It takes the odor of ammonia at least ru hour and a half to make Its way to the oposite end of a glass tube Bliont five feet long. With the Idea of throwing some l!ght on the character of odors that, whether or not they eciually consist of tangible physical particles of sub-atomic size, the ex periment was tried of allowing the odors to aacend and descend glass tubes and noting the time of their :irriis:on. One curious phenomenon noticed In this connection Is that the odor of cam phor ascended twice as fast as it l"scr-n(!cd, while ammonia diffused equally In either direct'on. It Is through the penetrating hydrogen sul phite odor carried by slowly ascend ing currents of air that the in . u class of birds that feed on carrion are able to locate their food. Tlitwa hirds are often seen sailing around find around all day long, until flnilly, ron etimes after the lapse of two or throe days, they have been able to tries the smell of their food from prr"at altitudes downward to its loca tion on the ground. As Prof. Moore declares, the d!s tnnre from which' they come, often J'-) miles and sometimes from an al titude of 10,000 feet, "gives some Idea of the gentle slope of these so-called Ofceiidlng currents, which are twist e.l and contorted into every lniagin r.ble shape by the wind. A Death Mask of Cromwell. Cromwell's death mask, which so appropriately rounds out the Crom well part of the Harvard Carlyle col lection, hung for many years In the Cromwell's Death Mask. English writer's home In Chelsea and was given by him to his friend and correspondent Prof. Charles Eliot Nor ton of Cambridge. The cast bad been presented to Carlyle by the sculptor Thomas Woolner, the present posses sor of the original death mask, and Is one of the few casts ever taken from tho original mask. When Car lyle's bequest came to Harvard, Prof. Norton presented the cast to the Har vard College library, and the Harvard library thus became possessed of the fourth cast taken from the original mask, the other three being respec tively at the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge and In the British Mu cum. Carlyle considered it undoubted ly the truest existing Image of Crom well's face, far to be preferred to the common oasts In which all the finer roincs of likeness had become oblit erated. Freeh Water . Beside the Ocean. Along the coast of the Island of Cebu, In the Philippines, most of the fresh water wells and springs are sit uated within a few feet of the ocean, but, strange to say, the salty taste of The Bamboo Water Vessels. the sea cannot be detected. The wo rr.cn or Cebu take the water to their homes In long bamboo vessels, and in t'...3 picture are shown some Visayau -'.omen getting their day's supply. Wonderful Imitation In Animals. Some animals have wonderful pow ers of Imitation. Dogs brought up In tho company of cats have been known to acquire the trick of licking the puv.-s and then washing the face. When a cat has been taught to sit up for her food her kittens have been known to imitate her action. Darwin te!ls of a cat that was In the habit of putting her paw into the mouth of a narrow milk pitcher every time she got the chance and then licking the cream off her paw. Her kitten soon learned the same trick. A lady tells of a rabbit that she keeps In a cage with a monkey, and says that Bunnle has caught many of the monkey's ways. Detroit News Tribune. Some Peculiar Names of Women. Flower names have always been In favor, but at present the names of proclous stones run them a good sec ond. Lord Edward Churchill's daugh ters are Ruby and Beryl; there Is Miss Pearl Finch, daughter of Mr. Cleorge Finch, of Burley-on-the-Hall; Miss Frances Wllseley, only child and heiress of Lord Wolseley, has also the name of Garnet r" and the new Lady Hardlnge, whose husband bas recent ly been appointed Ambassador at 8L' Petersburg, .. owns i beautiful baby called D14mond,o-From M. A. P. FOUR FISH ON ONE CA3T. Two Perch and Two Trout, According to This Angler's 8tory. It Is something after all to be the hero of a record, even If It does tuit mean much, and perhaps the success ful landing of four flsh on one cast Is not unworthy of being rescued from oblivion. It happened with me on the Shan non In Ireland some few years ago In the last or very nearly the last of my rc.:s:ns with the wet fly, and Is th(. more reiunrknblo ns I have not fislic with four Pies on my cant half a dozen times In my life. 1 was flslilm; from n boit anchored nt the tail of tin; strong broken water of the weir, ami roie and hooked wlint I saw wa.i n trout of nbout half a pound. Presently ns 1 was playing him bin motions seemed to become most rr i.;tic; he would pull heavily down n M ll.cn liiiitantly there would be or a movomeiit down Htrenm won become a movement up with a sud denness quite bewildering, and for few minutes I could make neither head nor tail of the action that wa. going on below. At last on the line coming closer I raw there was a gem 1 sized perch on the highest droppei. nnd presently I saw a Keeond perM on the lower, while n moment later 1 was astonished to nee that my trmir was also still on the point with a Finnller trout o:i the dropper net Urn. None of the fish was large o. course, though the perch next ire wa.i cjuite a pound; but I caw there ;u scarcely n possible chance to get r.V lour liito the boat safely, so haul! it; up the stone ami rope which held inc. I quietly starred paddling for the snore a hundred yards off with alter native strokes of the oars. Strange to say, I reached the low shelving shore without a blng'.e (Ish escaping, and slipping out of the boat drew the whole string ashore In triumph. The four fish were about two pounds In weight; and I had nn applauding gal lery of several young fellows on the bank whom It took me all my time to restrain from rushing Into the shal low water to scoop out the struggling (ish when they saw the extraordinary catch I was trying to drag ashore. From London . ield. A Survival of Type. When Lucy Ellen Morse was born It was announced that she was "all Morse." a fact which her young moth er, greatly awed and honored by her connection with the Morse family, hailed with Joy. Thereafter no criti cism on the baby could be allowed. "I think Lucy Ellen Is a very hard baby to get to sleep, from my one experience with her," said a youthful and courageous aunt who had been left In charge of Lucy Ellen for a day. The family was aghast at such here sy. "Fretful!" repeated the Morses, one and all, and then they turned to the mother of Lucy Ellen as the one to whom the complete refutation of this monstrous statement should be left. "I don't know what you would ex pect of a ten months' old baby," said Mrs. Morse, withering the unwise aunt with a side glance. "She sleeps in the old cradle In which her father and grandfather were rocked, and all she requires ever is to have it, tilted gently back am! forth for half an hour, steadily, and she falls Into the Bweetest sleep. I presume you may have jounced it, be ing only used to modern babies, who clout' have ancestors' cradles, dear," added Mrs. Morse, lenient to her err Ing relative at the thought of Lucy Elieu's unusual heritage. "Perhaps I did," said the youns mint, meekly. "My feet went to slee; before Lucy Ellen did." "Your feet!" cried Mrs. Morse, re proachfully. "Lucy Ellen Is rocked by hand, Just as her father was. We sit on tiic P.oor, of course, to do it. Poor little lamb!" she cried to the house hold Idol. "No wonder she didn't go to sleep! We forgot the aunty didn't know. But it sha'n't ever happen a?ain " "No, It certainly sha'n't," said th' visiting aunt, with a peculiar glint iu Lcr eye. Reporters and Orators. There have been errors In reporting, of comee. There always will be such errors. But Inaccuracies of this kind are usually Insignificant, and they are n.cre than balanced by the dressing u.) and revision which good reporters de vote to caielesa, Illogical and some times ungrammatlcal speeches. If it were not for the maligned reporter, nine speeches In ten that are not de livered ftom manuscript would read like a "combination of bad grammar and delirium tremens," as Mark Twain put It. It Is th,e saving grace of re portorial revision that has made many an oratorical reputation In this coun try. The public speaker who does not recognize his obligations to tho men who report him Is an lngrate. A Just punishment for him would be to print his speeches exactly as be de livers them.. After two or three experi ences of that regimen be would have nothing to say of "Inaccurate report er." In Different Sets. It Is but seldom, one imagines, that a good Joke Is made about an oyster. Edmund Yates, however, In bis 'Rec ollections and Experiences." relates one. "I was walking with Thackeray one evening from "the club," write Yates, "and passing a fish shop In New street, he noticed two different tubs of oysters, one marked "s. a de)i en,' and the other 'la. 3d. a dozen.' : " 'How they must bate each other,' aid Thackeray." 1 '
Significant historical Pennsylvania newspapers