more mush-mush, no more love stories, or I'll refuse to recom
mend you for re-election; but if you'll show one atom of origin
ality, I'll guarantee you my job next year."
I had often seen Brooks sigh and pale and raise a window for
air, as he ground his way through a manuscript; but never before
had such an explosion of sentiment been known to ruffle his
bland serenity.
" Why," he continued, " I just got a letter from an old Grad.
begging us in the name of Heaven to take a brace and get out
one decent Stiletto. Now Maurice, you're the only man on the
board who can save us. Clifford turns out nothing but poetry,
and that only under miraculous inspirations; Loomis, why con
found it, I should have to ask him six months in advance to get
anything; Bud is busy with locals, and Jack has his hands full
with athletics, and I can't get one spare minute, myself. If
you'll give us something bright and fresh, Maurice, love
you as I do my Dutch girl over at ShingletOwn; and the next
man that calls you lazy is a devilish liar."
Brooks had sworn by his sacredest oath, and his look was so
appealing, as he turned his mild, innocent blue eyes on me, that
I recklessly promised to try. Instantly he sprang up and grasped
my hand, with a heart as light as that of a spring lamb frolicking
in the Barrens. And then, with the air of one whom wine has
made careless of expense he roared:—" Gad, how I'd love to see
our ' chronic kicker' when he gets the next issue of the Stiletto!
He'll perish "on the spot. It will contain another one of Thurlow's
love stories; a story in which he tells, under the title of Her
Tangled Heartstrings,' the romance of a little wayside flower, ` a
lonely, brown-haired, solemn eyed child, with the heart of a poet,
and an inexpressible yearning for affection,' into whose life there
came a youth from the outside world; how this youth had sought
to please her, because she was 'so crudely quaint, so honest, so
tenderly innocent, , and he wished to find out of what staff she
was made;' and how, ' the tense-strung little girl had thrilled be
neath his carelessly grave words;' and then when the Summer
was over, he had departed as quickly as he had come, without a
word or token to break the desolate aftermarth of silence; and
she had come to know ' the pain of an expanding soul.' The
Kicker' will read. that and curse all mankind because someone
has not ditched the source of suicides by inventing a mental