be restored as soon as his mother could sew
it on his blouse-sleeve. Miss Allardyce had told the Colonel a story
that made him proud of his son.

'She belonged to you, Coppy,' said Wee Willie Winkie, indicating Miss
Allardyce with a grimy forefinger. 'I _knew_ she didn't ought to go
acwoss ve wiver, and I knew ve wegiment would come to me if I sent
Jack home.'

'You're a hero, Winkie,' said Coppy--'a _pukka_ hero!'

'I don't know what vat means,' said Wee Willie Winkie, 'but you
mustn't call me Winkie any no more. I'm 'Percival Will'am Will'ams.'

And in this manner did Wee Willie Winkie enter into his manhood.

A MATTER OF FACT.

And if ye doubt the tale I tell,
Steer through the South Pacific swell;
Go where the branching coral hives
Unending strife of endless lives,
Where, leagued about the 'wildered boat,
The rainbow jellies fill and float;
And, lilting where the laver lingers,
The starfish trips on all her fingers;
Where, 'neath his myriad spines ashock,
The sea-egg ripples down the rock;
An orange wonder dimly guessed,
From darkness where the cuttles rest,
Moored o'er the darker deeps that hide
The blind white Sea-snake and his bride
Who, drowsing, nose the long-lost ships
Let down through darkness to their lips.
_The Palms_.

Once a priest, always a priest; once a mason, always a mason; but
once a journalist, always and for ever a journalist.

There were three of us, all newspaper men, the only passengers on a
little tramp steamer that ran where her owners told her to go. She
had once been in the Bilbao iron ore business, had been lent to the
Spanish Government for service at Manilla; and was ending her days in
the Cape Town coolie-trade, with occasional trips to Madagascar and
even as far as England. We found her going to Southampton in ballast,
and shipped in her because the fares were nominal. There was Keller,
of an American paper, on his way back to the States from palace
executions in Madagascar; there was a burly half-Dutchman, called
Zuyland, who owned and edited a paper up country near Johannesburg;
and there was myself, who had solemnly put away all journalism,
vowing to forget that I had ever known the difference between an
imprint and a stereo advertisement.

Ten minutes after